Co-hosts Rob Flis & WatchMojo founder Ashkan Karbasfrooshan chat about how WatchMojo found its... Mojo?
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00:00This program might contain strong language.
00:07If you think you may be offended, switch off now.
00:19Hello everybody and welcome back to Inside Mojo, where each week we bring you one of
00:24the most pivotal moments in WatchMojo's 20-year history on YouTube.
00:28I'm your host, Rob, and with me as always is WatchMojo's CEO and co-founder, Ashkan
00:33Karbhusrushan. How's it going today, Ash?
00:35Excellent. Honestly, no complaints.
00:37It's a bit of a snow day.
00:38So we had like 10 centimeters of snow and they canceled everything.
00:43It's nice to see we are producing a generation of resilient future leaders.
00:47That's one way to look at it for sure.
00:50I'm doing great.
00:51Today is a little bit more of an uplifting episode.
00:55In past weeks, we went through some of the early challenges for WatchMojo, including a
00:59lawsuit and some early financial struggles.
01:02But today we're looking at how WatchMojo kind of found its footing and turned a corner.
01:06So why don't we pick up where we left off last week, Ash, and talk to us about how
01:11WatchMojo started to find its groove?
01:13Sure. I mean, you know, when I've talked about entrepreneurship, I hit on like about
01:17originally six, now about eight or nine things you need.
01:20So ambition, vision, persistence, execution, focus, once you find out what to focus
01:27on, and then luck and timing and resilience.
01:29So it would be super disingenuous of me to sit here and kind of hold court and talk
01:35about things without just recognizing how lucky we were that we started at the same
01:41time as YouTube did.
01:42You know, I mean, the reality is I've always said the same way that ESPN and MTV were
01:48early on cable with like pretty crappy programming by their own admission, which then
01:52became really like the gold standard of premium content.
01:56We were very early to YouTube and, you know, we could see that there were all these
02:00different competitors that were trying to do what YouTube was doing.
02:04So I think it always starts with pretty, you know, you've got to blend the macro, the big
02:08world situation with your own strengths and your interests.
02:13So when we started, I think it was pretty clear that, you know, the first wave of the
02:19web, you had like these portals, you know, like Yahoo and AOL and MSN.
02:27And then, yeah, basically.
02:28So these were, you know, all the different kinds of companies that kind of at one point
02:33or another tried to kind of become the dominant aggregator or player.
02:37So like if you're I'm aging myself here, but it started off with like real player, which was
02:43just like a piece of software you download.
02:45And at the time it had a huge market value.
02:48And then, you know, you had like websites like E-Bombs World, which wasn't like a UGC
02:53platform, but it was kind of like some guy, I think in like Rochester or in New York
02:57State. But and so, yeah, like he would just kind of like literally find videos and rip
03:03them off elsewhere and upload them.
03:06And then you had the portals Yahoo, MSN, AOL, which is where I kind of like owned my
03:10craft. I used to write articles for Aspen and these publishers, these portals would take
03:14like half the article and then link back to us.
03:18And I was like kind of a well-read columnist.
03:20But I could see that like these guys are too into, you know, they have like a plan A, you
03:26know, they have their business model and video was just a bit of a headache.
03:30So when we started in 2005, when we started to experiment, you know, you had sites like
03:37Rever and Gooba, who were kind of like YouTube, you had Daily Motion in France, you had
03:41Metacafe out of Israel.
03:44And like I said, to me, YouTube was just a different kind of beast.
03:50And I think the reasons for that really had to do with just the way they were a lot more
03:56loose and flexible with the DMCA and pirated content early on.
04:03But for us, it was kind of like as we started, it was pretty clear to me that as much as
04:08content was important, you needed to find the right distribution platforms.
04:12And so we were lucky that we started when YouTube started.
04:15Before we continue, I want to let the audience know that we have a poll going up on WatchMojo's
04:19YouTube page, and we would like to know what type of videos do you watch the most on
04:24YouTube? So options are influencers, reviews, tutorials or podcasts.
04:29And if there are any other categories of videos not listed, please let us know those in the
04:33comments. And we'll revisit that towards the end of the show.
04:37Ash, we often hear the term content is king thrown around a lot.
04:41How true is that and how important was that for WatchMojo?
04:44I think, look, content may be king, but distribution is queen.
04:49And we know who rules any household, whether it's a castle or normal household.
04:54And I go, but however, context is the prince.
04:57And I'll explain that. So when Sumner Redstone, who founded Viacom, when Sumner Redstone
05:05said content is king, I think people ran with it like it was some decree from God that
05:11like content has all the leverage.
05:13And he actually I mean, he's an OG, you know, like he's a legend of media.
05:18But I think he actually did a disservice to entire generations of entrepreneurs and media
05:24executives, and I'll expand.
05:25So all he meant was as new distribution platforms arise, it creates new opportunities to
05:34distribute and therefore monetize content.
05:38That's what he meant, basically.
05:40And then later on, when Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, acquired Corbis, which was like
05:45Getty, a stock image provider, he also wrote an article entitled Content is King to
05:53explain why tech guy would go into content.
05:56And again, it kind of created this false sense of protection and security from media
06:03executives who felt just because we got great content, we'll hold out.
06:08And that's why I wanted to talk about it, because, yeah, content, sure, it's king, but
06:13distribution ultimately in a tech era is not like a newsstand where it's just some beat up
06:20plywood on the corner of like, you know, 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue that is
06:26interchangeable in the tech era.
06:29I got news for y'all.
06:30Distribution has all the power, not every second tier, third tier, you know, poor man's
06:37version of the third tier distribution platform.
06:40But if you build global distribution platforms with scale, with first party data, I hate to
06:49break it to the monarchists who think content is king, but distribution is actually more
06:54powerful. Now, the only thing I'll add to that, and that's why I like I use context for our
07:00like entrepreneurship brand and, you know, Context TV, Context is King, the website,
07:05Context Matters or like suite of audio programming, including the show.
07:09I do think that two different types of videos on two different distribution platforms are
07:15entirely different.
07:18This is not saying anything like rocket science here.
07:21Take a kind of right wing racist message, totally bad, like I'm not condoning it ever.
07:30But like if you put that on a historical website, it has one very different context.
07:36It's educational. If anything, you're saying, hey, don't be stupid, don't do what the Nazis
07:41did and don't do what like, you know, the fascists did or whatever.
07:45But that same website on white power dot org, which I hope is not a real website, by the
07:50way, don't know what it is.
07:52It probably is somewhere.
07:54It probably is something.
07:55But that's a very different message.
07:56Right. So context to me prevailed content, right environment.
08:02And one reason why YouTube was so successful, you know, one of them was just embeddable
08:07video that you could literally copy source code off the player and just paste it on any
08:15website. And that's actually ironically how YouTube blew up, because before Facebook,
08:20there was a little website called MySpace and everybody would embed YouTube clips up on
08:25MySpace, which drove Rupert Murdoch crazy because Rupert Murdoch, who owned Fox, was
08:31competing with Sumner Redstone, the other old white guy on the previous slide for
08:36MySpace. And so News Corp was like, why the fuck do we buy MySpace if you guys are now
08:42building up YouTube?
08:43And he understood it, that they were basically creating the monster that became YouTube.
08:48And along with Facebook, both YouTube and Facebook are what killed MySpace.
08:53Right. We saw a slide about the waves of tech video aggregators, but we also
09:01have one of web video content producers.
09:03So where does WatchMojo fall in to those categories?
09:07So from 1994 to 99, there was like, I think Steven Spielberg was an investor in Pop.com,
09:16you know, they were really like, I'm sorry, Pop.com or Pseudo.com.
09:21Like there was there was like a number of really early players who had the vision and
09:27foresight, who wanted to kind of create programming for the web, you know, but what was
09:33the drawback? You know, there was no broadband usage.
09:37Consumers didn't even know you could watch video.
09:39You know, you had the big fat dancing baby, you know, you had things that would come and
09:43go. So those guys were kind of dead, you know, they were dead on arrival.
09:48And then the dotcom bubble burst or whatever venture capital might have been there.
09:52You know, these guys all washed away.
09:54And it's like, hey, if you're really early to a market, you might as well just kill
09:58yourself. I mean, it's just chances are you're ahead, you're not going to build a
10:01business. Then the second wave is just noteworthy for me personally, because that's
10:05when I was at AskWen and that's when I was like starting to see these companies like
10:09Mania TV, like Heavy that were making a lot of noise, like PR wise, because they were
10:16like cutting edge or some of them wouldn't really produce a lot of programming.
10:19They would just work with ads.
10:20So, you know, AdAge would write about them.
10:23I think that was more heavy.
10:24Mania TV was trying to build like an MTV and I would talk to them occasionally and be
10:29like, hey, you know, do you want to promote your website?
10:32Do you want to partner somehow?
10:34And really the key takeaways here, you can't like a lesson of I'm a history guy, a
10:39lesson from World War II is Hitler could have ended up, you know, going much further.
10:45But his downfall invariably would have been one thing or another.
10:49But his downfall was opening up the Eastern Front and expanding into the USSR and then
10:54getting to Stalingrad and then being pushed back.
10:57You can't fight too many fronts.
10:58So these guys were basically trying to build the content.
11:02They were trying to build the distribution.
11:04They were trying to generate sales and make sure that the infrastructure, hosting,
11:07bandwidth and all that was stable.
11:10You're effed. I mean, forget dead on arrival.
11:12You're just you have no hope because even if you nail on one of them, it's impossible to
11:17nail all four. Right.
11:18But so when I was watching these guys, I didn't even know I was going to become an
11:23entrepreneur. I was just like some young kid partying way too much and showing up to work
11:27somewhat hungover and then just doing sales and partnerships and writing articles.
11:33But I was like, OK, you know, like if I'm going to do something, it'll probably be in
11:36content and I could see video as the future.
11:39And I was like, yeah, but this does not seem like a good strategy.
11:43I was so like as I was becoming more of an entrepreneur and starting to have
11:47entrepreneurial kind of like impulses and desires and dreams, I was like, we're so late,
11:53we're so late, the window is closing.
11:55So when I started, I tell people, look, it is what it is.
11:58I literally resigned and I did a couple of interviews.
12:00I went to New York, I went to Miami, but I'd already built a team.
12:04You know, I'd start to hire.
12:05We got an office.
12:06So I was already committed and I just went dove into it right away.
12:12And in hindsight, it would have been good to take a month or three months or six months.
12:16But again, I was just very impatient.
12:19So we tried as part of the third wave.
12:22There was revision three, which produced Dignation.
12:24There was next new networks that was trying to build like, you know, 30, maybe even more.
12:31I think it was like 64 networks, you know, like a fashion travel.
12:35And I was like, OK, good luck.
12:36That seems like I thought I was ambitious trying to build 12 verticals.
12:40But so we were all trying effectively to build content, put it on our website, as we also worried about the tech and all that.
12:50And it was impossible because users who would stumble on a website with video were not in a state of mind to watch a video.
13:00Maybe they wanted an article, maybe they wanted an image.
13:03I mean, heck, at that point, if you were watching online videos on the Internet, you were probably looking for porn, to be honest with you,
13:09because porn is always ahead of mainstream marketing tactics.
13:14But so we had to make a choice.
13:17And my choice, because I didn't have a board that would have probably pushed back on this.
13:22I said, you know, I may not like male pattern baldness, but it's a thing.
13:27I may not like gravity, but I can't fight it.
13:29The world spins this way.
13:31So I was like, the world is going to YouTube.
13:33Sure. Maybe also Dailymotion and Metacafe a bit.
13:36But then once you scratch the surface, you're like, YouTube is going to dominate.
13:40So we made the decision to really embrace YouTube.
13:44And then obviously, we still had to figure out the programming, which was admittedly a bit all over the place.
13:50And you guys had a lot of early competitors that had a lot of money and spent a lot of money, but many of them burnt out early.
13:56So what made WatchMojo different?
13:59So, I mean, look, if setting false modesty aside, I think like when I mentioned Next New Networks and Revision 3,
14:07it's like Revision 3 was started off with like Dig Nation, a couple of, you know, podcasters who launched Dig.com.
14:15And so they were doing a show.
14:16They weren't like professional executives.
14:18So, you know, the investors who invested, one of the few investors that was doing content invested in Revision 3.
14:25And so they bring their executives who are all traditional.
14:27Now, to be fair, Jim Lauderback, who was the CEO at Revision, whom I like quite a bit, stayed in touch.
14:34Great guy.
14:35Same thing with Next New Networks.
14:38You know, they raised $27 million in funding and they brought in, you know, a bunch of Viacom execs.
14:43And I understood it.
14:44You know, like I remember pitching to Ross Levinson and John Miller, who were like big executives initially at like Fox and, you know, News Corp and many other places.
14:56And these guys at AOL and many other places, and these guys like also launched a fund and we would talk to them and they're like, well, we like what you're doing.
15:03But I was kind of an unknown entity and our approach was very different.
15:08Right. We could talk about that a bit.
15:09But so all these companies ended up raising anywhere from like a million to 45.
15:14And since then, there's some that have invested even raised even more.
15:18And even that million, this is like from a deck, a slide from an investor presentation.
15:22It wasn't even a million.
15:23Basically, as we've said this a few times, I invested a quarter million dollars.
15:27Then once I ran out of that, I got another 500.
15:30But we didn't build like a big C suite of like a chief executive officer, chief marketing officer, counsel, chief revenue officer and all that.
15:40Like I was doing all those roles.
15:43You know, I was also like the de facto editor in chief.
15:45So like I basically sucked up what would have been millions of dollars a year in salaries.
15:52And to be honest, that's like a boneheaded way of building any business to have all these fancy, fancy C level execs who worked at huge companies who don't have any clue how to operate startups.
16:06But because you are an institutional investor and you have a fiduciary duty, you go hire these guys thinking, you know, like they're they know what the hell they're doing when they didn't.
16:16And also they didn't want to focus on YouTube.
16:20I can't stress that enough.
16:22Revision three, you know, I give Jim a lot of credit, but I have many memories of running into him at conferences.
16:28And he was like, no, you know, we don't like YouTube.
16:30It's like, why?
16:31Why would we do this or that?
16:32And that was basically really it.
16:34Like we basically really, really looked at YouTube and said, we're going to program and come up with content for YouTube and the YouTube community, whereas everybody else was in la la land and denial.
16:45Right.
16:45Let's talk about that approach to making content for YouTube.
16:48I want to show one of the early hits that you guys had, which was an interview with Canadian celebrity Justin Bieber back in his heyday, I guess, as a budding celebrity is a global superstar.
17:02Now, Justin Bieber.
17:04Yeah.
17:04So when did you start?
17:05This was big for you guys.
17:08It was a kind of thing that I just love to do.
17:10I always played a lot of different instruments and stuff.
17:13So I grew up around music my whole life.
17:16So the truth is, like, this is how far back we go and we used to work like we didn't kidnap the poor guy, like off of this tour bus and, you know, Rebecca's like, sit here and let us ask you questions.
17:26This was Universal Music, who was promoting the then unknown Justin Bieber, same way that we interviewed like behind the bar Lady Gaga when she was an unknown entity as well.
17:38I mean, that's how far back we go.
17:39So, yeah, I mean, I think when we did these interviews, these were more a testament to like Bieber blowing up.
17:47You know, I do want to stress that, like it wasn't like and I interviewed 300 people, celebrities, newsmakers and interviews are boring because you can't actually sit down with a celeb and be like, hey, you beat up your wife.
18:00Let's talk about that.
18:01Or like, hey, remember that time you drank three bottles of vodka and like hit a cop, you know, or like Mel Gibson?
18:07We're going to talk about that day when you said a bunch of crazy stuff like the publicist would jump in.
18:12So I always was like, look, this is not a replicable thing.
18:17This did millions because Justin Bieber was blowing up.
18:21But if you sit down with Cardi B or Gore or Ja Rule or Kendrick, it doesn't matter.
18:29You know, you get kind of bullshit.
18:30And the world of the web was going less and less towards that packaged kind of polished TV feel to more raw kind of authentic programming.
18:44And I was like, yeah, you know, I've done this.
18:46I've done the interviews and I didn't want any of the limelight.
18:48I purposely wanted to build a media company.
18:50So I would send Rebecca and a few others to do the interviews.
18:53But it was just like I was like, this isn't going to work.
18:55And this was like an early struggle when you manage a team.
18:58And my style, I was very open to hearing people.
19:01But I was like, we're all going to be living in a refrigerator box in the back alley if we think this hit is like a franchise.
19:07It's just it's a one off, you know, but it was what's technically one of our first hits.
19:11Yeah, it seems seems like the more type of thing that you would have seen on like Entertainment Tonight, television, like more like television programming than YouTube programming as we know it now, because things have moved into more conversational kind of like podcasts, you know, where you can get into the weeds with people and have longer form conversations.
19:28That's not the only early hit that you guys had.
19:30You also had success with Origins of Superheroes, which is quite different.
19:34The next phase of human evolution mutants within the Marvel comic book universe possess a gene that allows them to naturally develop superpowers.
19:43Hi, welcome to WatchMojo.com.
19:45I'm your host, Derek Allen.
19:46Today, we'll be exploring the history of one such mutant, Wolverine.
19:50To avoid confusion, it should be noted that we are following the.
19:54We take this seriously.
19:55I mean, so it's funny, this store was a store underneath my condo at the time, which I ended up mortgaging.
20:02And it's funny they went there.
20:03We're always look for random backdrops.
20:05So, yeah, this was something that like I remember we used to plan six months out and we were like, oh, you know, September 15th is the whatever 50 year anniversary of Batman.
20:14And I was like, let's just do like biographies like these are real people.
20:18And my concern was that DC or Marvel would send us like a cease and desist, but they never did.
20:24Again, the show is I mean, I like to be modest and humble, but the point isn't to bullshit people into saccharine nonsense.
20:32That is what it takes.
20:33You know, like I've alluded to it behind every fortune is a great crime.
20:37There's no crime here.
20:38There's no it's fair use.
20:39And these are our clients and partners now.
20:42But it takes that kind of risk taking confidence, pushing the envelope.
20:48You know, if I would have asked them for permission, even if it was within our law to comment, criticize, mash up, yada, yada, they obviously would have said, yeah, go fuck off.
20:57You know, we don't do this.
20:58Even if we don't disagree that you have a right, we're not going to license you.
21:01It's not our business.
21:02Like we want to put butts in the seats.
21:05So we push the envelope, you know, but we were careful if somebody really was like had a thoughtful, reasonable position.
21:11But my concern was, yeah, some junior person that doesn't know the law could just be like, you're not allowed to do this.
21:17And what I just think is interesting about our little side note is today the web would be very different if it wasn't for our struggles, because if rights holders had their way, they would control all media.
21:27Who gets to post what, when and think of like YouTube, you're watching the hockey game.
21:31You could go and see clips pretty much right away.
21:33And that's some of the work that we did.
21:35But yeah, so this was actually a franchise.
21:37This was something that origins of superheroes.
21:40We did 50.
21:41I didn't even know we had fucking Ant-Man.
21:42I was like, oh, my God.
21:44But this was when I could see the whole geek culture.
21:47You know, Marvel had been acquired by Disney.
21:50It was clear like they probably sat there.
21:52And by the way, not to have a big head.
21:55I am pretty sure that when we started doing this and these were seen millions and millions of times, it did kind of probably give more confidence to development executives.
22:08No joke.
22:08I mean, I know, but this has been confirmed in talks like record labels have told us, like you guys promoted Queen so much that we were like, wow, you know, and Queen, not because of us, because it's freaking Queen and Mercury and May.
22:20It's like the gods of music.
22:22But Queen is super popular because us and millions of others were talking about them and doing stories.
22:28So I think when we started to do this, I am sure that there were some development execs that were like, OK, we could do a movie on Superman, but there's no demand for Ant-Man, is there?
22:37And then when we start doing these and they read the comments, there are some voices that are like, should we issue a cease and desist?
22:43But some wiser person is like, shut up.
22:46We're not going to cease and desist.
22:47You're basically you're almost like conducting a survey from the land of the Internet.
22:52Like, are you interested in this or not?
22:54And then the big companies can use that information to make their decisions.
22:58And the proof of today, these companies are our clients.
23:01They advertise with us when they have new shows.
23:03So you've often spoken about fishing where the fish are.
23:07Tell me about that and the approach to content with it, with that view.
23:11Well, yeah, I mean, so the fishing where the fish are, when I speak to that, it's about the YouTube at the time opportunity.
23:17And what I'm getting at is, again, it would be weird if I were to tell like an aspiring storyteller entrepreneur, yeah, go do something on YouTube.
23:25You should be aware of YouTube.
23:26YouTube is a great platform.
23:28But I'm like, whether it's Snap, whether it's TikTok, whether it's Crapster, whether it's X, whatever, you do need to go where there are people who are
23:36engaged and care about your ultimate product.
23:39And this is a flagrant mistake.
23:42All of our competitors and the incumbents did.
23:45They had this very misguided sense that like their content was so special that like they could hold on to it and people would go to their sites.
23:55I was having a discussion with, I mean, I've alluded to this already with Bell Media in Canada like 10 years ago.
24:02And they were like, well, our team at TSN, which is like Canada's version of ESPN, or if Trump had his way, ESPN's division, I guess.
24:14You know, they had this thinking that if we put our content from TSN on Facebook, we will validate Facebook.
24:24And I was like, do you really think Facebook cares about you?
24:27You know what I mean?
24:28Like it's Facebook.
24:29And I'm like, and that's ultimately, I think, the fundamental mistake others did, whereas we took the right approach, which was the world is on YouTube now.
24:39Right. So understanding how Google won, it wasn't one thing.
24:45They had a good product.
24:47They had the right backers.
24:48All the initial search like AltaVista, Excite, Lycos had moved to becoming portals.
24:54They stayed independent versus selling too much.
24:56And they inspired themselves from GoTo's model.
24:59When the dotcom bubble burst, nobody else was interested in the web.
25:04They signed a really smart deal with Yahoo, which kind of fucked Yahoo in the end, or Yahoo fucked themselves.
25:09That era, that management, totally different management now.
25:13And then, you know, they made a couple of really, really smart acquisitions.
25:16And then that's it.
25:18They were like the dominant player, you know, and it was kind of like obvious, but also, you know, discreet.
25:25And so YouTube won.
25:27Frankly, it started off with like the PayPal mafia.
25:29It was a couple of guys who had left PayPal and they were smart.
25:33But I think Sequoia's brass balls was the key.
25:35Sequoia was like, we don't care.
25:37Like, we'll defend you.
25:39We'll rely on the DMCA.
25:41You know, there's enough safeguards that we're a platform.
25:44We're not responsible for pirated content.
25:46But then things like Flash Video mastering, you know, the DMCA and then selling to Google.
25:52We would not be here.
25:54Like, I think Yahoo, sorry, YouTube would have had an interesting trajectory, but I don't think any company would have done with YouTube what Google did.
26:03And Google deserves a lot of credit for that.
26:06And because Google Video was so not successful that the Google execs, who all think they're super smart, and they are, they come from good education backgrounds.
26:15They thought like, you know, usually they're like, we know what to do.
26:18But I think with YouTube, they just left it alone.
26:20The technology, the integration with AdWords, and like the FTC and all the, you know, government people were too inexperienced or dumb to really understand how dominant YouTube and Google were getting.
26:32They got sued by Viacom, seeking a billion dollars in damages.
26:36The trial went nowhere.
26:37Like, it was a stalemate.
26:38So technically, Viacom, by not winning, Google won.
26:43And then they really, really, to their credit, didn't care about monetization.
26:46They even had TrueView, which was like skip ad, which is like so disruptive.
26:51You're a viewer.
26:52You now think you can not only control what to watch, but also which ads to sit through.
26:57And they just outsmarted their frenemies like Vivo, who could have had a future, but I don't know what they were thinking.
27:04And then, yeah, when it was convenient for them, then they leveraged the creator community, which I know YouTube is not going to like this.
27:09But YouTube has never really cared about, like really, you know, it's just like they can't put a spotlight on Paramount that was suing them.
27:17They can't really put a spotlight on Eminem, which is a record label's IP at the end.
27:23They kind of like midway in their 20 year history when they started Brandcast, they kind of made it seem like we really care about creators.
27:30But the creators are a cog to them.
27:32They're not, you know, they're going to hate that I say this, but it's just, you know, they're a platform.
27:37They don't care.
27:38You know, so the creators are a bunch of hookers.
27:41You know what?
27:41They're a bunch of clean access to them.
27:44Fair enough.
27:44You mentioned that it's actually a good thing and they've been great.
27:48But I'm just realistically, it's a symbiotic relationship where one cannot exist without the other.
27:53Well, I don't think so, because Google YouTube can exist without even if Mr.
27:57Beast wasn't on the platform today and Mr.
27:59Beast is the king.
28:00He's the king of YouTube.
28:02Nobody would care.
28:04Yeah, that's true.
28:04And I'm curious.
28:05This is off topic.
28:06But what do you think about Mr.
28:07Beast branching out now into Amazon Prime programming?
28:09And how does that translate?
28:11Trying to replicate the YouTube content, but on a different, totally different platform.
28:15Yeah, so I think Mr.
28:16Beast is a really smart fellow because he realized like what mistakes say PewDiePie and others did before him.
28:22So even though it's Mr.
28:23Beast and it's like personality, I think to his credit, he built operations.
28:27He built a team.
28:29He built systems and processes like we did.
28:32And I think he has no choice because he's too big.
28:34Like he can't get that much bigger on YouTube alone.
28:37So if you don't branch out to other platforms or other verticals or other formats or other something, what do you do?
28:45If you don't innovate and adapt, you die.
28:48So I give him credit for that.
28:49And he's going to make mistakes and missteps.
28:52And because he's the biggest one, he has a target on his back.
28:56But I do think 99% of the criticism, I'm not defending like the bad behavior.
29:04If there was any MeToo stuff, I'm not defending that stuff.
29:07But a lot of his criticism is just envy and jealousy.
29:10A lot of big creators on YouTube have specific formats that they specialize in.
29:16How important do you think that is?
29:18And do you think that really defines the success of a platform or a channel on YouTube?
29:23Yeah, so one of the feedback I got around 2010-11 was from Shane Smith, Vice and Troy Young, who was a bit everywhere, eventually Hurst.
29:33But at the time, it was, I think, it's a media, both Canadian, but running American businesses.
29:39They were both like your contents all over the place.
29:41They're like, it's really impressive what you've built.
29:42But they weren't even talking about formats.
29:44They're talking about categories.
29:46One day you got car tip.
29:47Yeah. So this is something I created when I gave the VidCon keynote, which needs this is missing pranks, by the way, sometime in, let's say, 2008.
29:55And I want to update it to bring it up in time for our documentary, which should be out in a couple of months called Just Watch, kind of a story of YouTube.
30:03But yeah, no, I think format, which is like an axis along with categories, is really key.
30:10So these are more genres.
30:12Right. So I kind of go there's formats, there's like all the lingo.
30:15But but so you've gone through it first.
30:17It was just pirated content, what really drove the popularity.
30:21Then it was a lot of user generated content, like random one offs.
30:24So there was no like replicable boldness to it.
30:28It was just one offs.
30:29And people were always unique.
30:30You're like, how could we go viral?
30:31I was like, this meeting is over and how to go viral.
30:35If you can actually go back.
30:36I was like, if you want to plan to go viral, just go get an STD.
30:39That's your safest bet right now.
30:41And then you had bloggers, some who were fake, like Lonely Girls, some like Ray William Johnson, Phil DeFranco, who are all at one point or another, the kings of YouTube.
30:48But you burn out if you don't actually execute and diversify or build a team, you know, content.
30:55There is a shelf life.
30:56Then you do it yourself.
30:57How to's. And you had music.
30:59We talked about Justin Bieber.
31:01We, yeah, I think around 2012, 2013, in 2014, we were the seventh largest channel in the world, which is amazing, you know, and people go like, do you miss?
31:13I mean, you want to be seventh.
31:15You want to be the first largest.
31:16But the reality is, I knew that that would only be possible that if YouTube would not grow.
31:22But obviously, if you then see others like PewDiePie and then you see like others like Unboxing and kids and this doesn't even show it.
31:30But like you actually now have mainstream of vacation.
31:33You have news content.
31:34You have a lot of shows, you know, like I remember it's not here.
31:38I have the one million plaque.
31:40I have the 10 million somewhere else.
31:41I remember Marvel didn't have a channel.
31:44That's why we could produce content.
31:46And it was like entertaining.
31:48Marvel reached 20 million subscribers within a couple of years after launching their show.
31:52And a lot of, you know, I think more self-centered, nearsighted entrepreneurs would be like that sucks.
31:59I was like, this is amazing.
32:01It's validation.
32:02And, you know, it's Disney.
32:04It's their IP.
32:05Like, I was genuinely happy for them.
32:06But it was like a rising tide lifts all boats.
32:09It's, you know, to me, it made a ton of sense.
32:12But yeah, so I do think that YouTube was really about niche if you're Canadian or niche if you're American.
32:20Susan Wojcicki, the great late CEO of YouTube, she kind of coined or popularized that whole super serve your audience.
32:28And I do think that YouTube was all about that.
32:30And this is something we got wrong, like or we didn't optimize early on.
32:35Our content was actually quite heterogeneous.
32:39And even when we narrowed it to the format of top tens, hat tip Moses and the Ten Commandments, it was like still a bit all over the place.
32:46You know, you had a gaming, a top 10 travel of sudden top 10 sandwiches, top 10 dictators.
32:51You're like, I saw like a grilled cheese in the previous video.
32:55Now I'm seeing Hitler and the Holocaust.
32:57What is the connection here?
32:58Right. To me, it made sense and it worked.
33:00But that's not the playbook.
33:02The playbook is like I run a channel doing recipes that are vegan for breakfast.
33:07And even if you do a breakfast that's not vegan or you do a vegan dinner, people on YouTube are like this, like unsub die.
33:13It's a very weird, you know, it's a very weird platform like that.
33:17But it's a great platform.
33:18But it's just very fickle.
33:19It's not like NBC where you're like, I'll get SNL, I'll get news, I'll get Dateline.
33:24YouTube is extremely niche.
33:26It's just that's the nature of the platform.
33:28Does the nature of the content kind of speak to that field of dreams approach where, you know, whatever you put out there, there's an audience for it and it will find its way to to that content?
33:37Well, no, I don't think you could totally just produce content and be like the stars were aligned.
33:42I mean, no, it's like you want the girl.
33:43You have to you have to go talk to her.
33:45You have to ask her out.
33:46You know, it's just she may come to you, but it doesn't usually work that way.
33:50Like you have to get off the off ramp.
33:53So, no, I definitely don't think produce the content.
33:55What I've always meant by field of dreams is if you build it, like first build it and then worry about everything else.
34:02So one of our early competitors, Next New, you know, they're in New York, close to Madison Avenue where marketers are more overhead.
34:10So they weren't really producing content in year three or four.
34:13It was all branded content.
34:14Right. It was all like, OK, we're going to go and, you know, pitch the series to American Express.
34:23About how much small business owners love their point of sale terminal, I was like, get the fuck out.
34:30Nobody cares about this.
34:31Nobody cares about this.
34:32So they would show much bigger like revenue early on.
34:36But it was it was like a box of it was like a house of cards.
34:40You know, I was like, nobody, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I want to talk to small business owners about why they love their point of sale terminal.
34:48But that was like the kind of content that some people were producing.
34:51And it made no sense.
34:52Meanwhile, we're like top 10, you know, whatever, lesbian makeout scenes in movies, which was probably going to do a bit better.
35:01So you do some of our videos.
35:03I wonder why that would do better.
35:04It's a shock.
35:05I don't know. I'd like to commission a report, a study.
35:09And we YouTube's evolved a lot over the years.
35:13And the content on the platform has also had to.
35:16So how does a company like Watchmojo evolve with the times while also kind of staying true to the formats that it's become known for?
35:23Yeah, that's a good question.
35:24I think there's like a PR bullshitty lie and then like the real truth.
35:28So as I said earlier, like I didn't want to be the top 10 guy, even though I love top 10s.
35:33I obviously like essays, you know, Q&A's, biographies, but like you kind of look at what your clients want, your users want, you see what your team is more passionate and good at.
35:44So again, you've got to match internal with external.
35:47We've tried to diversify.
35:48So this actually just to explain is if you think about it, all the successful things that happened on YouTube, there was actually a previous version of it to some extent.
36:01It's just the previous guys, the incumbents were too lazy, too slow, too rich, too fat, too stupid, too whatever to just, you know, innovate or die.
36:12Jukin Media with their fail army and all that is basically America's Funniest Home Videos.
36:17Watch Mojo obviously was not just Letterman, which was funny, just soundbites or Wayne's World or Moses, but it was top 10 list.
36:25We didn't do that.
36:26Pranks, Vitaly pranks, whatever, all this crazy stuff that was like hardcore pranks.
36:33And I was like, Jesus Christ, how are these guys not getting arrested?
36:37What's so intense compared to like Candid Camera and JFL's gags?
36:42JFL's gags are like they're also from Montreal and I give them credit.
36:46Vice, JFL, Cirque du Soleil, all great media brands out of Montreal.
36:51I just give them props.
36:52But in this context, fair is fair to say.
36:56JFL's obsessed.
36:57Well, they sold it now, but they were obsessed with their gags.
37:00And I was trying to tell them for years, I'm like, if you compare that to the fair on Watch Mojo, where there's like a bloody half corpse coming out of a trunk of a car scaring some poor gal.
37:12Do you think anybody gives a fuck about your stupid gags, which are cute?
37:15Like, how does that stand out?
37:18It's like a guy on a bike where there's like a fake police taking a picture.
37:21OK, OK, great.
37:22That's good when I'm like on an eight hour flight on my third, you know, Johnny Walker black label.
37:29But online, how does that even and people don't get this because they're so like.
37:34So I'm getting to a point I like to take, though, so we could have always been like, we're the top ten guys.
37:41We're the fuck, fuck that.
37:42We can't be that stupid in life.
37:43Like there's always you know, there's so much competition for attention.
37:47There's so many people.
37:48You and I, we don't have a God given right to anything.
37:51We have a God given right to two thirds of fuck all, you know, so you have to adapt.
37:55You have to innovate.
37:56My biggest challenge is the team.
37:58And I don't mind saying it like this.
37:59It's a great team.
38:00I built the most kick ass team, but they are specialists at things.
38:07And when I come, I'm like the crazy content story guy, media guy that wants to experiment and iterate.
38:15And that means change.
38:16That means disruption.
38:18So it's really more the struggle has always been.
38:22Do you want to break what works to get the company to somewhere new?
38:27Which could fail.
38:28And when people fuck up, I don't blame them.
38:30But it seems like when I want to go in a direction, it becomes a bit more like, why did we do this?
38:36Why?
38:36I'm like, you only have a job because we took a risk on this department that hired you.
38:41That's right.
38:41You know, but they don't get that.
38:42And it's fine.
38:43I love them.
38:44But so as I get older, I'm also like, okay.
38:47To have that conversation with them.
38:48So the biggest challenge, you know, we got cash in the bank.
38:52We're profitable.
38:53We, a few years ago, we took so many risks.
38:57But I feel now it's more like you just as an entrepreneur, it's like Donald Rumsfeld says that line.
39:02Oh yeah.
39:03Do you go to the army with the team you have?
39:05And I'm more and more ago.
39:06I see what their strengths are.
39:07I don't focus on not so much weaknesses, but things that they may not be necessarily the best at.
39:13But otherwise we could experiment all we want, but it takes so much patient and commitment for things to become hits.
39:19Now, when think of Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan started 10 years ago doing this podcast, people are like, oh, podcasting.
39:26We should do this.
39:27No, you moron.
39:27Unless you're willing to do it for five years.
39:29Yeah, you get.
39:30So company eras, this might've been, I took it out of the third, the, my third book, the 10 year overnight success.
39:37So 2006 to nine, we're just experimenting nine to 11.
39:41We start to tinker a bit more on factual, you know, we were like, okay, factual it's evergreen.
39:46We have a competitive advantage to team.
39:47You know, I was hiring English journalism communication.
39:51So I was like, these people know this racket.
39:54And then we kind of found our platform format fit, which was, you know, the four pillars, fair use, using clips, top 10 format, geek culture as a category and entertainment, and then obviously YouTube.
40:07And then 2017, 18, we hit a wall where we had grown a lot.
40:11We got hacked.
40:12It was just like every, and this is normal in business where sometimes all of the tailwinds can eventually catch up and become headwinds.
40:23So we kind of then had to go and reinvent ourselves.
40:26And we did, we launched this mojo, we expanded to snap.
40:29It was always funny when we get the odd email, somebody who would discover us on snap or Tik TOK or Insta be like, Hey, you guys have a YouTube channel.
40:37And I loved it.
40:38I was like, yeah, no.
40:39So we experimented a lot.
40:40And then once we found it, I mean, we could have just done that, but we definitely have done a lot of other things, but in media, it's like that wall street journals at the end of the day, a print.
40:52I mean, website, but it's an article based news source.
40:56PewDiePie was ultimately just about let's play gaming.
40:59Mr.
40:59Beast.
41:00It's ultimately challenges.
41:01If he goes, I'm going to do documentaries about the blind.
41:05If there's no challenge component, nobody cares, you know?
41:08And I love the guy, but it's just, you have to be honest.
41:10Um, everything ESPN cable sports, that's it.
41:15Nobody cares.
41:15And when they got all woke and by the way, I don't mind the principles of the D I woke movement, but it became a caricature.
41:24I'm watching sports.
41:25Why is this dumb ass telling me some nonsense that I didn't tune into here on a sports channel?
41:32And then I found out this person was having sex with like her, his or hers, like direct report.
41:37Like it's all hypocrisy.
41:38Right?
41:39So what I'm getting at is like, ultimately you do have to stay true to who you are.
41:45And we are ultimately known for top 10 pop culture.
41:49It's, it is what it is.
41:50You embrace it.
41:51Yep.
41:51And one of the advantages of that is that you can then streamline your content.
41:55And, and you mentioned that simplicity being one of the keys to, uh, producing content at the scale that we have.
42:02Um, so how, how, like how important was finding that format and identifying that for the health of the company?
42:09Well, look, the reality was the company was an expensive hobby for the first six years.
42:13Um, it was a great way for people to remind me that I wasn't that smart and I didn't know what I was doing.
42:19Right.
42:19So obviously it's once the business became successful, but then, you know, even if you say you don't care what people say, that's not really true.
42:29Because even as an athlete, you need to get drafted by a team.
42:32You need to be coached.
42:33You know, you do need certain validations.
42:36So I had no choice.
42:38We were in it for six, seven years, but it's once we found that, and then we became
42:43profitable after breaking even, and then you could really reinvest and hire more people and pay people more and just expand.
42:50That's really when it became a business.
42:52But a couple of weeks ago or last week, you said, were the VCs wrong who didn't invest in you?
42:58And I'm like, I like to be consistent and I don't think they were wrong because it took us six, seven years to break even.
43:03And even though we're like a well-run company, I mean, we don't generate $800 million of revenue, you know?
43:09So it's not like, it's not like Watchmondro had that profile, but here's the real reality.
43:14I never really cared to build a VC business.
43:17You know, I cared to build a business that was built to last, you know, a business that real fans, real viewers cared about.
43:25And we didn't have to play a bunch of smoke and mirror bullshit marketing tactics to be like, oh, we got all these people visiting us when in fact they were just like passers by.
43:36In the end, it's kind of like, to be fair, I was right, they were right, because it was just not really a fit.
43:43We were kind of trying to build two very different things.
43:46Fair enough.
43:46But we're here 20 years later, so it all happened for the best, I suppose.
43:51We've got our poll results in.
43:52So we asked, what type of videos do you watch the most on YouTube?
43:56And our audience said 47% say they watch influencers and creators, 19% tutorials, 16% reviews, 16% podcasts.
44:06So pretty even split, but the highest percentage, almost half of our results came from influencers and creators.
44:15Yeah, that's super popular.
44:16I mean, that's what, what do I watch most?
44:19Probably podcasts at this point.
44:21That's probably my bread and butter right now.
44:24I was never big on influencers and creators, but podcast hosts, they kind of bridge the gap a little bit too.
44:30I've never been into the influencer creators, although I champion them and I love them and I think good for them.
44:35I think good, stick it to Hollywood.
44:37You know, it was always in your head.
44:39You were trying to convince them, adding a bit of mustard to defend the creators.
44:44Like some failed actress became a casting director at some failed company, but he or she would decide like who would be a star on Hollywood.
44:53Whereas like the web and YouTube gave that opportunity to somebody, and these are not saying in a bad way, somebody who was maybe overweight, somebody who had a list, somebody who had a, you know, speech impediment, somebody who was bald, somebody who was fat, somebody who was ugly, whatever.
45:09That's the beauty of the web, right?
45:11So YouTube really as a microcosm was this emancipator and it kind of like broke away brick by brick, the gatekeeper model.
45:21And I love it, but it was never my thing.
45:24I didn't need to sit and hear some girl talk about Chicago or why she loved Beyonce.
45:29I was like, what we created was like what I wanted and what was missing, which actually goes back to one of the most important lessons of entrepreneurship.
45:37Solve a problem, solve the need that you are facing sometimes, because there are probably other people who are just not entrepreneurial who also feel that way as well.
45:47And if you kind of care about solving that problem, you're going to build a business.
45:50But if you start off with we want to build content to make money from advertising, what is the content that will never work?
45:58You've mentioned that most media companies or successful media companies are kind of one trick ponies.
46:03So what does that mean for WatchMojo moving forward?
46:05How do we look ahead to the evolution of YouTube over the next few years and project to like where we will be?
46:12So, I mean, just anecdotally, we didn't plan this big podcast, literally, like we said it on the first episode, you sent an email.
46:20There's the general thing that, hey, I do podcasts.
46:23I'm interested in podcasts.
46:24If that's something we want to do.
46:26I was like some other guy.
46:27Young Deuces was like, have you thought of a documentary on WatchMojo?
46:30And that's what I do. I connect dots.
46:32I'm like, nobody gives a fuck about a documentary on WatchMojo, except maybe my mother and maybe your mother.
46:37You know, I was like, it's not like I don't think most people care.
46:39I care.
46:40I care.
46:40No, I'm exaggerating.
46:42A lot of people care.
46:43But, you know, but I was like a more interesting idea to me would be a story of YouTube through our experience.
46:47And then I was like, I got my third book.
46:49But then I was like, let's do a podcast.
46:50Right.
46:51But this is a good example.
46:53Yes, this will air on WatchMojo, but it's not like we're really force feeding it.
46:58We are trying to like, whether it's the context brand or whether it's Mojo Plays or this will also live on Spotify and X, you know.
47:06So I think it's about getting outside of your comfort zone and not being like I, honest to God, I've said this before.
47:15I could have died in Iran in 1984 or something during the war as a six year old, like as crazy as it is.
47:20So I kind of like and I sometimes forget it, but like every day is gravy.
47:24Every day is a bonus.
47:25Right.
47:25That's why I always seem like I'm so excited and want to accomplish so much, because at the core, that's my nature.
47:29That's what's my reality.
47:31When whomever decided, drop me onto this planet.
47:34So I'm like never going to be laying back complacent if I don't push more.
47:39It's because the people like the people, when you push, you hurt people, you put them in uncomfortable positions.
47:45And as an empathetic person, I don't like to do that.
47:47At 20 years, I don't care as much about that.
47:49I admit, like it goes up and down different things.
47:52So now it's like we're going to do some stuff.
47:54We're going to experiment.
47:56You're welcome to help me or just get the fuck out of my way and do your job.
48:00You know what I mean?
48:01It's very simple.
48:01I'm not going to come over your shoulder.
48:02I don't micromanage, but if you are not an entrepreneurial person, there's some people at this company.
48:07I'm like, hey, what do you think about this or that?
48:09And I get like, this is what I get a blank.
48:13Like they're not here, but I love them because I didn't hire them to come and do like new product development.
48:19They came to like edit or fix some goddamn color correction.
48:23So I've become like Buddha.
48:24Buddha wasn't born Zen, by the way.
48:26You know, I'm like, do your thing.
48:27But now I realize, yeah, like you don't, you can't have art by committee.
48:31So we're going to try things.
48:34It's fun.
48:35Somebody doesn't like it.
48:36Good for you.
48:37Go yell at a wall.
48:39And also viewers like back in the day, viewers were like, I did not say, look, I love you.
48:44Thank you for your patronage.
48:45You don't have to click like this is not North Korea.
48:49Saddam Hussein is not taking your finger and clicking on the mouse to watch.
48:52Just go watch something else.
48:53Like we have 20 videos a day, you know, like what more, just more free content.
48:57So and also not taking yourself seriously.
49:00Like that's just, you have to experiment, but you have to put yourself out there and know that some things will not work.
49:05We did some, like we did the lineup, which was like a pretty clever game show.
49:10Okay.
49:10It could have been better in hindsight, but I'm happy we did it.
49:13We did the worst travel show.
49:14It wasn't really something I was like pushing to do, but I was like, okay, people have ideas.
49:18And in the end, like our lives didn't change, but I'm glad we did them, you know?
49:25Right.
49:25Well, you gotta, you gotta experiment otherwise you stagnate, I guess.
49:29Innovate or die, motherfuckers.
49:31It's that's in business.
49:32It's that simple.
49:33Let's do a little preview for next week's episode.
49:35We will be talking about WatchMojo's four pillars.
49:39Yeah.
49:40I mean, we've alluded to this, so we could kind of expand and, you know, make it like informative, but it's basically, yeah.
49:46I mean, at a high level, it's, you know, the geek culture and I want to maybe put it like today.
49:52What are some things that in the next decade, like entrepreneurs and storytellers should look for instead of just repeating?
49:58Yeah.
49:58Like Disney bought Marvel and I'm like, oh, this is going to get big, but like, what's the pattern?
50:03And if you're in 2025 looking forward, what is that next inflection point?
50:07Format and top 10 list.
50:09I mean, we don't need to dwell on that.
50:11Fair use.
50:12We could obviously talk about that and we should, but I think also right now with AI, there's some interesting parallels that I could say, Hey, fair use allowed us to push the envelope.
50:22AI similar parallel, if anybody's interested.
50:25And I've done a video on the context TV channel on AI and storytelling, which people seem to like, it just breaks down the opportunities.
50:33And then, yeah, talking about YouTube and then we could similarly just kind of look at like quick tail of the tape.
50:39Hey, it's 2025.
50:40Is YouTube still the best, you know, game in town or is it all about snap or tick tock or X or whatever?
50:48Awesome.
50:48Should be an interesting episode.
50:50Tune in for that next Thursday on YouTube, LinkedIn X and Spotify, I believe.
50:57So, yeah, we're everywhere.
51:00Well, thank you for your time as always, Ash.
51:03And don't forget tomorrow's Valentine's day.
51:05So that's right.
51:07Do something special for the person you love or people.
51:10Or people, yeah, more interesting than mine.
51:15All right.
51:15Thanks, everybody.
51:16Until next time.
51:18Cheers.