June 5, 2025 • 43 mins
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Matt Koval shares his unique journey from early YouTube creator to becoming YouTube's first Creator Liaison, offering rare insights into the platform's evolution and internal decision-making processes. He reveals how his $47 creator course caught YouTube's attention and led to a decade-long career developing creator education programs including the original YouTube Playbook.
• Started as a comedy creator in 2008 alongside early YouTube stars like Hank Green and Shane Dawson
• Hired by YouTube in 2012 after creating what may have been the first-ever YouTube strategy course
• Helped develop fundamental creator resources including the original YouTube Playbook
• Eventually became YouTube's official Creator Liaison after years of unofficially humanizing platform announcements
• Left YouTube after 10 years to start Creator Dynamics, working with companies to improve their YouTube presence
• Confirms some channels truly are "dead" and beyond revival despite what YouTube's internal teams claim
• Believes growing on YouTube is significantly harder now due to increased competition and quality requirements
• Recommends creators focus on selling products/services rather than just chasing views for long-term sustainability
If you're interested in learning more about Matt Koval and Creator Dynamics, check out the links in our show notes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome back to the only podcast that
has more guests than hosts.
My name is Travis and I'm heretoday with a very special guest,
Matt Koval, who I've known fora couple of years now, and I'm
super excited to introduce youto everyone who listens to the
podcast.
Matt, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, I'm doing well.
Great to be here.
I've been a fan for a long time.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
What has been going on in your world?
I mean, we're going to get intoall the other things but, like
in the last like 30 days, what'sbeen taking up your mind space
on YouTube, like what are thecool things you're watching?
We'd love to let people knowwhat are the cool things that
we're watching.
So what's been in your watchhistory?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
if we look through your watch history, oh gosh, a
lot of stuff about homerenovation and, you know, a lot
of productivity videos andthings like that, and then, as
usual, just YouTube education,trying to stay on the cutting
edge.
A lot of the clients I workwith now are companies and
(01:00):
organizations who have certainchallenges, and so I'm always a
student of YouTube, learningfrom folks like you and others
and just picking it up where Ican.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You never stop learning, like it's just one of
those things that you can neverstop learning.
But for those of you who don'tknow, matt actually used to work
at YouTube and now has his owncompany, creator Dynamics.
We're going to talk about thata little bit later.
And we have Matt on because hehas a unique perspective of
things that, to be honest, maybetwo or three people in the
(01:34):
entire world can actually saythat they have the perspective
of Matt, which I think is supercool because, having worked at
YouTube but worked with creatorsand been a liaison between and
like there's so much of what youdid that we're so creator
focused that it's like superexciting to have you here,
because not only can we kind ofdive into what youtube valued at
that moment, but then like whatkind of things in the creator
(01:54):
economy are valued now, becausenow you've seen it from there
and now into your own company.
This is super cool.
I'm very excited about this.
So let's just dive right in.
Sounds good, all All right.
So, number one let's start offwith like how you started.
How did you start at YouTube?
Like how'd that happen?
How did you get that job, whatwere you doing?
And then we'll kind of workthrough that whole thing.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, well, it actually started.
I was one of the earliestcreators, so I started my
channel actively in 2008.
So when you talk about YouTubeOGs, I go way back with, like
Hank Green and Lisa Nova, shaneDawson, phil DeFranco all of
them and I ran a successfulchannel for about four years
(02:35):
Comedy channel, told storiesinto the camera, wore women's
wigs with a series called theFooplers, which ended up being
like quite the engine of mychannel.
And then YouTube had some kindof program called NextUp that
you could join, if you rememberthat, and I applied and you know
(02:55):
you got a grant from YouTube toyou, got funding to keep
running your channel.
And then you also got flown outto New York for workshops with
various professionals in theindustry, and that's where I met
Google employees for the firsttime.
Okay, yeah, and in an attempt tobetter monetize my channel, I
(03:16):
created what I'm pretty sure isthe very first online course
about how to succeed on YouTube.
Really, it was in 2011.
Wow, if anybody out there cancorrect me if I'm wrong, but
I've done a lot of research,I've asked a lot of OGs and
they're like, no, I can't thinkof anyone before that.
So, anyway, I sold five ticketsand that was it.
(03:40):
The cost was $47, but the fifthticket was purchased by an
executive at YouTube.
His name was Ben Rellis, verycool.
Ben reached out and he said hey, this is great, do you mind if
I share it with some colleagueshere at YouTube?
And I said sure, do they have47 bucks?
Because I'm trying to make somemoney here, man, and you are
(04:05):
Google, right?
Yeah, right.
And so they bought a coupleextra tickets.
I love it and a few other peopletook a look and next thing you
know, they invited me to applythis was 2012 for a role as a
content strategist at YouTube.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Did that position exist before that?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Not really.
They were actively in the modeof trying to teach creators and
they acquired a company calledNext New Networks and I joined
about six months later.
So I joined this Next NewNetworks team that included Ben
Rellis, vanessa Pappas who endedup running TikTok, and a lot of
(04:44):
very early influential peopleof YouTube and educators of
YouTube, and we kind of like allwrote the best practices, the
original best practices, theoriginal playbook.
If you remember, there was likea physical playbook.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And looking back I'm like, ohmy gosh, that was like some
crazy golden era.
I can't believe I stumbled intothat.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's so interesting .
So you were hired for aposition that maybe didn't exist
or, if it did, probably wasn'tas detailed as it is today.
What was that like?
Going into a corporation whohad focused on something that
maybe they didn't even fullyunderstand, didn't even fully
understand?
I mean, I say this with a lotof respect, but I mean
(05:26):
corporations and I'm not justtalking about YouTube, but
corporations which includepeople like Amazon and stuff
like that.
Dude are selling to a customer,don't always understand the
customer's experience, andYouTube is very focused on the
viewer experience, as theyshould right, because about
viewers, nothing happens.
But now you know, at this time,what 2012 was you were saying
they're looking at creators andlike how to get that kind of
(05:47):
thing flowing.
When you go into that, how doyou say, ok, these are the
things that creators need.
Because I'm a creator, beendoing it for years, I kind of
know what people need.
And how was that process?
Were they kind of like we'renot real sure about those ideas?
Or were they like let's doeverything that you'd like to do
?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
The latter To their credit.
They were Google employees, sotechnical program managers,
product managers, et cetera, andthey built this platform and
they saw all these kids growinghuge views and they're like,
none of them use the platform,which continues to be a theme
that I pressed internally,because so few people actually
(06:28):
use the platform inside YouTube.
Interesting.
It's a real disconnect.
That, I think, still is kind ofa problem.
But they put all of their.
You know, they very smartlyreached out to the next new
networks team, who became thenext lab internally at YouTube
and they said you know, hirecreator people, hire creatives,
(06:50):
bring them in.
And so this guy, ben Rellis,who was my first boss, who hired
me and he was my mentor for along time internally, it was his
job and he was determined tocreate creative strategy on
YouTube and so we created theplaybook.
(07:10):
And then also, if you've everheard of the 10 fundamentals of
YouTube, which was like an earlyprogram that we created, it was
just like the curriculum, the10 things that you need to do to
grow on YouTube and we pushedthat out, scaled that to 70
different languages and it kindof became the early fundamentals
(07:33):
which a lot of them still hold,but it was the early playbook.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So what was the kind of internal reaction to this?
After you'd been there for alittle while and were making all
these changes and beingadditive to the experience for
creators, did they even know howto measure your success, like
what was success for Googleslash YouTube?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Well, that's a great question and it's a very Google
question because everything ismeasured at Google but back then
there was a lot more investmentinto R&D research and
development and they were justlike throwing money out there
and saying you know, you know,let's not count the beans right
(08:18):
now just just come up with whatworks on YouTube, let's scale it
out.
Let's see if we can get peoplereally embracing and using this
platform, based on what we knowalready from the handful of
creators who are doing well onthe platform.
And then I thankfully I neverhad to be a part of the team
that was counting the finances.
(08:40):
I never even knew if YouTubewas financially successful back
then.
I just know that they keptencouraging us to do more and
more from a creative developmentstandpoint and coming up with
more best practices, and thenencouraging creators to thrive
on the platform.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
What was your goal in those first couple of years
coming in and being a new partof the team?
What did you want to accomplishpersonally?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, I had been a freelance filmmaker for a long
time, pursuing independentmovies.
I was writing screenplays, Iwas actually the cinematographer
on a Chris Pine independentmovie before YouTube, and so
while we were on set, heactually got the news that he
was going to be Captain Kirk inthe new Star Trek.
(09:32):
And so I thought I was goingdown this certain path, but then
the movie didn't go anywhere.
The Hollywood business was sofrustrating it really seemed
like just who you knew.
And then I got on YouTube and Ijust started having so much fun
, and so by the time I was hired, I was just so happy to have a
full-time job.
(09:53):
Okay, that's fair, that's fairand one that was around,
something that I loved, whichwas YouTube, and the tasks that
they gave me were like hey, canyou come up with best practices?
And I'm a former teacher aswell.
And so I was like are youkidding?
Yes, of course, and I don'tknow if you've ever rolled into
a Google office, but it's likefree breakfast, free lunch, free
(10:15):
snacks.
There are all these perks,there are massage chairs and
things like that.
And so the transition to goinginternally.
I was like you got to bekidding me.
This is the backup.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I felt like I was kind of swimming out in the
ocean and the ocean waves, andthen this cruise ship picked me
up and I got brought in too.
And you know we're so used toworking really hard as creators
and like, okay, I've got to geta video out by tomorrow.
And then my boss some of mybosses internally in the
beginning would be like, matt,can you do this project?
(10:49):
And I'm like sure, when youneed it tomorrow, you're like
what?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
No, three weeks from now Right, right, right right.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Can you slow play this?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, I guess, sure, yeah, if you want me to.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah.
That's just the way it goessometimes in corporations.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So what happens?
Okay, so you're in it furtheralong and then at some point and
I thought this was kind ofinteresting you had a video
presence on your like YouTube'sface in a way right, In a lot of
ways you were because you werethe one person as the liaison.
And how did that?
I want to talk about theliaison thing too.
How did that lay?
(11:29):
I want to talk about theliaison thing too.
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
and when was there a moment they're like we need you
to be on the youtube channel,kind of representing us, because
you were that guy.
Yeah, so I was there for 10years and I wasn't the creator
liaison until the last two years, interesting.
But prior to that I was, verymuch unofficially a face of
creators because, um, I helpedrun the creators channel, so I
was the lead of that channel fora while.
But also a couple of things.
I mean one we were trying toscale the best practices of
(11:54):
YouTube again and so I wouldoffer to jump on camera and just
explain them, and so my bosseswere like oh yeah, of course, I
mean, you were a creator, you'vegot you know how to talk on
camera, by all means.
The other thing was YouTubekept bombing their announcements
.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I do remember those days, yes, they would make a
change and then announce it in akind of a stuffy corporate way.
Yes, and it just would enragethe creator community.
And oftentimes, the creatorsdidn't understand why the change
was really made, and so I keptwatching that happen again and
(12:37):
again.
So this is, like you know, 2015, 16, 17.
And I said, you know, would itever be helpful if I just got on
camera and tried to clarify whywe do certain things, like why
we had to make this particularchange, what article 13 is?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, what does that even mean?
Yeah, yeah, if anybodyremembers that, I do remember
that.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yes, Yep, the whole adpocalypse thing as well and so
I convinced some people to letme do that, and we made some
videos and that got me in touchwith the head of communications
at YouTube, who was like Matt,this, you just kind of like
solved that problem for us,which is amazing.
Have you ever thought about,you know, us creating a role
(13:21):
around, like being some sort ofambassador to creators, some
sort of go-between?
And I was like no, I hadn'tthought of that, but I'm open to
it, I'm game, yeah, yeah.
So that's the beginning of thestory, and I'm happy to explain
how the official version cameabout later.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, so you and that's actually how I think we
met was when you were doing thatrole towards the end of your
time at YouTube, and I rememberyou doing a lot of stuff on
Twitter too, so you were postinga lot on Twitter.
So I'm always curious how muchof what you had to say on the
socials and YouTube had to gothrough like legal and stuff
(14:01):
Like how often were you beingheld back by legal?
Because I used to work atAmazon for about seven years and
I know that everything wentthrough legal.
What was it like for you?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
it wasn't so much legal as it was PR or PR yeah,
pr, yeah, yeah yeah, sometimesthe PR team would be like, ah,
can you not say it that way?
Yeah and um, but I, I startedto have a track record of
success, so they started to giveme more agency in what I would
say or what I would write.
(14:31):
And it got to the point wherethey said gosh, you know, matt
kind of gets it.
He keeps landing these, really.
So let's give him more leeway,let him not use that corporate
lingo, but just be a little morestraightforward.
Him not use that corporate lingo, but just be a little more
straightforward.
And then when thecommunications team and the PR
(14:52):
team would write blog postsannouncing certain things, they
would send it right to me andthey would say Matt, can you
just carpet bomb like commentbomb this whole doc?
I love it.
And I took out things likedon't say content, say videos,
because that's what we mean.
I would just slash through allthese corporate words and
everybody internally was kind ofcheering me on and so it was
(15:12):
nice.
I mean I enjoyed a rare statusinternally as one of the few
creators who was an employee.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So, for those who don't know what type of things
that are still being done todaywere things that you kind of
either pioneered or were part ofearly on, just to kind of
connect the dots.
So obviously, the CreatorInsider updates and stuff you
definitely had a large part ofthat.
What are the things people seetoday?
Do they not even know that youhad a hand in?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Sure, Well, I should clarify Creator Insider came
from the product organization ofYouTube.
So YouTube is kind of split inhalves.
One is like the business sideand kind of like the marketing
side, partner managers et cetera, and the other side are all the
very smart folks who do theplumbing of the platform and the
systems.
So Creator Insider actuallycame from the product side.
(16:03):
I ran the official YouTubecreators channel.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Oh yeah, Sometimes I get those confused yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, which was on the other side.
But yeah, as far as things thatstill come out, you know, if
you take a blog post, forexample, and you know it'll
always start with something likefor the last 20 years, we have
pioneered, you know, yeah, yeah,yeah, like for the last 20
years, we have pioneered, youknow, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Usually those things arewritten by like 15 different
people and there's a Google docand everybody starts chiming in
(16:33):
and then people make differentversions.
And that's the kind of thingthat I would often weigh in on
and try to just keep it real andsay guys, you know, can we not
say that?
And they would say, well,sometimes they say, well, matt,
that's not going to translateinto 50 languages, we can't use
your anecdote right there orsomething like that, that's fair
yeah, because I'm always usingmetaphors and whatnot.
(16:56):
But yeah, I mean, the teams noware just such a well-oiled
machine and they do a great job.
I still give them a little heatsometimes about some of the
announcements that come out andsometimes I wish I'm like, oh, I
wish I was still in therebecause I would have pushed back
.
I would have pushed back on howthat was said, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Like I would have said that slightly differently
if we had to do yeah, yeah, Iguess now.
So, towards the end, let's talkabout the last two years you
were there.
What kind of things were youworking on specifically and what
were?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
the things that you're really proud of that you
were able to do in that last twoyears.
Yeah, so, going back to thisunofficial role I had as this
on-camera person on behalf ofYouTube, what happened was there
was this guy who was hired onthe Google side.
His name was Danny Sullivan andhe became the Google search
liaison for Google, and so hewas a human.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
He was a human out there.
You never know anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean, if you look at these AI videos nowadays, I
don't know what to believe.
I know he was somebody who wasa journalist, who wrote about
and blogged about search enginesand they invited him to come in
internally and essentially be aliaison for Google Search.
So he would operate on Twitterand whenever there was any sort
of controversy about GoogleSearch he would jump in and say
(18:21):
hey everybody.
Don't worry, everything's fine.
I just talked to the productteam.
We're fixing this now.
And Google Pichai, ceo ofGoogle, loved it.
Sorry, sundar Pichai, ceo ofGoogle, just loved Danny because
he was able to put out firesinstantly and just explain
(18:43):
things in a very human way.
Like this happened.
We apologize, we're working onit and then follow up.
So what happened was one daySundar went to Susan Wojcicki,
ceo of YouTube, and said hey, Ilove Danny Sullivan.
Do you think we need somebodylike this for YouTube?
And Susan went to Chris, whowas the guy head of
(19:07):
communications who I had beenspeaking with about doing
something more formal aroundthis role.
And Chris said to Susan Susan,we already have him, we have
this guy.
And so they finally came to meand said Matt, it's time to make
it official.
This comes down from the top.
We'd like to formalize thisrole as the YouTube liaison, the
(19:29):
YouTube creator liaison.
So my manager and I went to workdeveloping more formally what
this role would do and not do.
Some people were a little, Ithink, threatened by the role
internally, such as the partnermanagers who were assigned to
certain creators.
They were like, wait a second,matt's not going to jump in the
(19:52):
middle of my relationship withthis and that, and then there,
there were some early roughpatches with Twitter, because
you probably know the, thehandle what is it?
Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blankthe YouTube handle where they,
they follow up and they helpeverybody.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Oh, YouTube help Team .
Youtube Team.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
YouTube.
Thank you.
So people were oftencomplaining and I would jump in,
and then Team YouTube wouldalso jump in, and so there
started to be a bit of buttingheads and there was that.
So we had to sort out certainswim lanes as to who was going
to respond, and then it veryquickly became clear to me that
(20:31):
I cannot respond to everybody.
I'm just one person, and so wehad to sort out like who was
going to respond in certainsituations on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So, with that being said, towards the end you're
like okay, things are cooking,people know who you are.
You're able to humanize theplatform in which people love,
create on, have businesses onthis thing.
That's actually changing lives.
I think we sometimes somepeople downplay how important
(21:00):
YouTube is to certain people'slives.
I just talked to a YouTuberwhich will be I don't know if
it'll be before this episode orafter Hafu Go, who employs a
team.
So it's not even the peoplethat are working for him to have
YouTube channels is thatthey're helping him, but it's
changed their lives too.
They're now doing some coolstuff.
So this platform is huge.
(21:20):
It's a big deal Changedpeople's lives.
You're working there, you'rehelping humanize it,
everything's great.
When was the moment you're likeI think it's time for me to
move on, and what was, what wasyour thought process and what
was going on in that moment?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
First of all, I didn't think I would last six
months inside a corporation as acreator.
So back when I was hired in2012, I was like it's just not
going to work because.
I'm too much of a angsty artistand you know, I'm like I'm going
to say the wrong thing or emailsomebody the wrong thing.
But you know, credit again tothe guy who hired me, ben Rellis
(21:52):
, who kind of came from thecreator world as well.
He ran a channel called BarelyPolitical which was a big comedy
channel back in the day.
But yeah, over time, you know,at a certain point I just
realized, wow, I've been herefor almost a decade inside
YouTube.
I'm still a creator, I'm stillan entrepreneur.
I kind of want to run my ownbusiness.
(22:15):
I kept getting asked to presentto various groups about YouTube.
I got asked to advise, likeFord in Detroit, like Matt, can
Matt go to Detroit to talk toFord about their YouTube
channels?
And my manager would be like no, sorry, we need him to stay
focused on this.
You know, I got invited to youknow, high schools to speak and
(22:40):
my manager, like colleges, mymanager was just like no, we
can't have you do that becauseyou have to keep staying focused
on what's driving the needleforward the most.
So I started to get very itchyabout that and then, kind of
like the golden era of YouTubewas kind of over.
So they were cutting a lot ofcreative developmental teams.
(23:00):
They shut down the wholeYouTube spaces.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, I'm still crushed about that.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, and that was such a wonderful wonderful for
anybody who doesn't know.
We had these spaces around theworld I think there were seven
or eight and they were basicallyfree production facilities for
creators to come in and justmeet each other but also shoot
videos, and it was awesome.
So I spent a lot of time inthose and they shut those down,
(23:28):
in addition to YouTube Origalsand all that.
So, unfortunately, just likeany business, over time they
started to shed away all thisR&D and kind of like creative
development type stuff.
They brought in a lot ofexecutives who were from like
McKinsey type places and theyreally tightened the ship, as
(23:48):
any corporation would do overtime, and so it was time.
It was time to go and I was veryproud that I created this role.
But I knew of people who coulddo it better than I could,
including my friend, reneeRitchie, who I recommended for
the role, and also someone likeRenee was just more comfortable
(24:12):
being in the spotlight and beingon camera a lot and receiving a
ton of attention, which I youknow, I'm again a former
filmmaker Like I prefer to bebehind the camera actually and
editing, and like that's thekind of work that I love most.
So I wasn't that comfortablejust constantly being out there
and kind of like also a punchingbag for YouTube sometimes.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I've known Rene for manyyears.
He was in my niche anyway, sobefore he got that job I had
known and I was super excitedwhen he got it.
He's such a great guy andCanadian, which means he can't
be mean, so legally he's theperfect person for that.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I've never met a Canadian who is not nice.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Literally never.
So let's talk about whathappened next.
Was there a bit of time betweenyou leaving YouTube and Creator
Dynamics being created, or didyou immediately jump right into
it, like what happened?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah well, I was terrified.
I definitely wanted to start myown company and consultancy.
But imagine you're getting agreat salary, you're getting
Google stock, and then youdecide that you're going to shut
all of that off and make nomoney.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
No thanks.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And no support, and so I was terrified of that.
So I kind of took a step downfrom a huge corporation and I
went to a platform called MightyNetworks, if you've ever heard
of that, but it's like a paidcommunity platform.
So I went from a 150,000-personcorporation at Google to a
100-person kind of startup atMighty Networks and it was a
(25:47):
great gig.
It was really interesting tolearn about a new platform.
You know, I think they wereinterested in having me join
with the hopes that YouTubecreators were going to come over
and use their product.
And I was there for a year andoverall pretty positive
experience.
But I still had that itch to goahead and start my own thing
(26:08):
and get back to my original loveof YouTube and so that ended
after about a year and then,after seeing a 100 person
company operate, I was moreconfident in starting my own
thing and so yes launch CreatorDynamics.
Initially thought I was going tojoin everybody out there who
(26:30):
was coaching creators and I waslike, oh man, how am I going to
compete against Sean Cannell andLeron and Daryl Eves Leron.
Blake.
But what happened was, becauseof my network of Google
employees, a lot of companiesstarted reaching out on YouTube.
A lot of former colleagues ofmine who work at other companies
(26:52):
now started to reach out say,hey, I didn't know, you're out
on your own, can you help uswith this company launching our
YouTube efforts?
And I said sure.
So what happened was a littleswim lane opened up that not
many in our community like toswim, in which is helping
companies and organizations withtheir YouTube channels, and so,
you know, I felt bad about kindof leaving creators.
(27:16):
But creators are in great handswith, like, all of you all and
there's so much advice out therethat I was comfortable, you
know, kind of pivoting in thatway.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, I actually like working with corporations.
I've done multiple Um and I.
I find that everything you sayis important to them, which is
really interesting.
Uh, at least the ones that Iworked with they they really do
pay attention to like everythingyou say, um, whereas some
creators will listen to what yousay and then say, well, that
wasn't my experience, I'm justgoing to ignore that whole
(27:50):
section.
And then you come back a weeklater and say, did you do these
things?
No, I didn't do that one thing.
No, you go to a corporation orsomething they've done, every
single thing you've told them,and they'll give you reports on
everything and if somethingworks.
I kind of love that, actually,and I think that people who have
not coached YouTubers and stuffhave no idea the whole other
(28:10):
side of this.
And there's even, like this,controversy and you'll see this
in comment sections on certainlearning videos and stuff.
You don't need coaches andstuff, and I agree that, like,
not everyone needs coaches.
I built my channel without acoach, but I did eventually take
coaching.
I went to Daryl's Jump Startprogram.
I wanted to understand somedeeper understandings of it.
So then when I became a coach,I was able to do a better job.
(28:33):
I feel like that gurus orwhatever it is it's starting to
become a bad word on YouTube.
I would love your thoughts andfeelings on kind of the
rejection of people who aretrying to help people you too,
cause you see, I'm sure you'veseen the videos on YouTube Like
don't look, don't listen tothese guys, don't listen.
What are your thoughts when yousee those?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I don't know that.
I've seen those videos.
I certainly know that the termguru does not have a great
connotation.
I never liked being called aguru, no.
And then some people would belike what do you mean, Matt?
You are the guru, Like you arethe YouTube guru.
Like no, I mean, I'm aneducator.
I think I just did a podcastwith Rob Wilson over there and
(29:15):
he doesn't feel comfortable withthat guru term.
No, he does not.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
He doesn't feel comfortable with that guru term
either?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
No, he does not.
You know, and look, internetmarketing has always been a
slimy business.
Some people have made it veryslimy.
It was that way before YouTube,by the way, like internet
marketing and all that, andthere are people out there who
sell courses that are justterrible.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And they're kind of taking your money.
There are people who sellterrible programs and they're
not effective, they don't reallyknow what they're talking about
, and so that just kind ofpoisons the well for the rest of
us, unfortunately, who reallydo a great job and really take
it to heart to try to deliverand make sure people get results
, and so unfortunately you havethat kind of reputation that
(30:03):
still comes up and it's a shamebecause it hurts the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, Now you mostly work with corporation YouTube
channels.
Would you say that?
Or do you work with a mixturenow?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I would say like medium-sized companies.
A couple corporations have comearound.
Youtube came around which isfunny.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Can you tell that story?
Because that's just hilarious.
That actually kind of happenedto me too, but I want to hear
your story.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Well, I remember when I was a strategist that there
were a lot of internal teamsasking for my support, and again
my manager, who often actedlike my agent.
I feel like would be like no,you can't have Matt, and so I
understand that certainpriorities, there are certain
priorities inside a corporationand but but teams are all like.
(30:53):
Google has like 40 YouTubechannels, 40 or 50 across
different products.
I think Gmail has a channel, Ithink you know 40 or 50 across
different products.
I think Gmail has a channel, Ithink you know Gemini has a
channel, and on and on, and at acertain point you know there
aren't enough internal YouTubeexperts to help all the
properties that Google owns froma YouTube perspective.
(31:14):
So, basically, one of the mainYouTube channels reached out,
namely YouTubecom slash YouTube.
Oh, wow, wow, wow and asked ifwe could do a full channel
analysis and evaluation based onbest practices.
So it was funny coming back inI knew half the people still and
(31:36):
it was like hey, everybody,great to be back.
That's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
How long after you left did that happen?
And it was like hey, everybody,great to be back.
That's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
How long after you left.
Did that happen?
That was, I think, about a yearand a half later.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So not even that long .
So what was just out ofcuriosity, just the bullet
points, what were some of thethings you had them kind of fix
Like?
What were the things that theyhad to focus on that maybe they
weren't even aware of?
Is there anything that's easyto explain?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, so this is a typical situation with a
corporate-owned channel.
They had abused the channelover the years.
They would just kind of use itfor marketing videos and they
would upload those rewind videosRemember those rewinds.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And so they would have like a big marketing
campaign where they would floodthe channel with like 50 videos
and then leave it alone for twoyears or something like that oh
my gosh or a year, and then adifferent campaign.
They would start and flood thechannel again with a whole
different series and so,unfortunately, you had this
massive channel with a ton ofsubscribers I think something
(32:39):
like 43 million subscribers butthe formats were all over the
place.
Who knows what the audiencereally wanted at that point,
because it was so many differentpeople had subscribed and what
happened.
So it was a case of trying togive them an overview and a
clear perspective of the healthof that channel and which
(33:00):
direction they should go with anew series they were launching.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I love that.
So a lot of the people thatlisten to the uh, the podcast
are newer creators or smallercreators trying to grow, and one
of the things that we hearsometimes is um, and we try to,
we try to bust the myths here,but a lot of people will say,
well, YouTube, uh, there'll beone of two things on the
negative side of things, whichis like YouTube doesn't care
about small creators, which wetry to explain why that's not
(33:24):
true.
So I definitely want to getyour thoughts on that.
And then the other thing whichI think is really interesting is
YouTube's after me.
They're shadow banning me there.
They don't like my uploads, sothey they hide me from people
You've been there.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on these.
Let's start with the YouTubedoesn't help small creators
thing and tell me your thoughtson that.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
I haven't been a small creator in a while, but I
will tell you and maybe thiswill come as a surprise to you,
travis but after being on theoutside now and very much in the
trenches with a lot of channels, I feel it more than I did
internally.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You do feel it, you do feel it.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yes, because people will come to me with channels
that are dead as a doornail.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
And I coach them through all of the things and I
do all the things.
I like to think that I knowquite a bit about what makes a
good video and CTR and retentionand all these things, and damn,
if we can't lift up some ofthese channels Been there.
Yeah, it's rough, and sothere's a big debate in our
community.
(34:24):
I don't know that you and Ihave talked about it, but is
there such a thing as a deadchannel?
And to me, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, I've seen them.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I've argued with folks internally at YouTube on
the search and discovery team.
They said, no, anybody canrevive a channel.
I'm like there's no way,because some of these are just
so ruined by ads, like paid ads.
And I call it old channelsyndrome as well.
If a channel has been aroundfor a long time, they've
(34:55):
uploaded multiple differentformats, they've tried different
things, they took a year off onand on Like at that point, if
you upload a new video and youcan't get past 100 views, just
start over.
Just start the thing over slate, with the algorithm, with your
(35:18):
branding and knowing that you'regoing to go in a very
straightforward, focuseddirection, instead of trying to
restart this channel that hasall this baggage from multiple
years and multiple videos andwho knows what kind of fans over
the years.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So there was a creator in one of our earlier.
So we did an episode on ourDiscord where we talked to
actual creators and they hadasked us questions and there was
a creator on there.
And when I say this number,you're not going to believe me,
but it's 100% true.
This content creator had 50,000videos and I know, I know and I
think they were under like1,000 subscribers and we're like
(35:58):
there just comes a time whenmaybe time, maybe your folk, as
long as you're passionate aboutit, you're enjoying it, cool.
My thought is, if you're doingit to grow, this might be a sign
and there are every once in awhile you'll see channels just
like that that, um, that's thecase.
Do you think now, despite thefact that competition is higher
now than it ever has been, thatit's easier or harder to grow a
(36:22):
channel from zero than it usedto be, maybe eight, ten years
ago?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Oh, it's definitely harder.
I mean, it's just supply anddemand.
You know we got to keep it real.
Yeah, I love that and you know,I think a lot of people
internally will still think well, you know, it's never been a
wonderful time, Like it's nevertoo late to start, and I believe
that it's never too late tostart Right.
But if you look at the videos,that would succeed.
(36:50):
You know when I started, 2008compared to now, like the
quality and the length is justincredible.
The quality and the length isjust incredible.
And so you really really haveto dig deep if you want to
(37:17):
succeed.
As a new, try to find someunique perspective or niche down
on the audience, Make yourvideos double the length of most
of the competitors or somethinglike that.
But absolutely it's tough outthere.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So what is your general advice to a new content
creator or smaller, strugglingcontent creator?
Is it give up?
Or is it something like I'msorry, this is not for you.
You need to go get that job,yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Well, I'm glad you asked because I don't want to
just be negative, nancy, here.
Um, so I love the channels nowthat only get a couple hundred
views per video but havesomething to sell in in in way
like a product or service, and Ilove that.
You know, I've met channels outthere and creators who are
(38:09):
making incredible money and theyreally only get like two or 300
views per video.
So I always say use YouTube toyour benefit.
Don't let YouTube use you Like.
Don't just chase views for noreason because you're just
becoming, you know you're like alittle engine of their platform
(38:29):
.
Still love them, but you'relike a little engine of their
platform and you're not gettinga return on all that time and
energy and if you really look,count the hours that you're
putting in.
If that's your goal, like ifyou just want views and exposure
and you have a job on the sidethat you're fine with great.
I mean, if you're enjoying itand if you're getting something
out of it, by all means keepgoing.
(38:51):
But I'd encourage people,sooner than later, to really
make it worth it by havingsomething to sell.
That said, I remember when Iwas younger I didn't have
anything to sell.
I just wanted views.
I just wanted attention andcomments.
And if that's what you want,just own it, embrace it.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, I think it's important to understand the
difference between and I alwaystalk about setting expectations.
Sometimes we'll talk tochannels that just do random
things.
I like to do all thesedifferent things.
Okay, fine, then set yourexpectations in line with what
you're doing.
If you're doing random things,you should expect random things
to happen.
If you're doing a focused thing, you can expect, hopefully,
some good success yeah, I, Iwould never recommend random no,
(39:37):
I never do, but if someone isreally good, there are people
that are like but I did, this isjust what I want to do, okay,
well, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, I mean, we'll take the company classic company
view here.
Um, a lot of companies come toyoutube and they think they're
going to program their channellike a tv channel.
Yes, you're like, I'm going toupload six different shows for
six different audiences.
It's going to be great.
We're going to upload sixdifferent shows for six
different audiences.
It's going to be great.
We're going to upload threeepisodes a day.
And you know, youtube was justnever made to handle that type
(40:07):
of programming.
You really want to be as narrowas possible.
I'm not even a fan of doingshorts and live streams and all
of the things.
Like I'm old school, like Ilove long form and community
posts.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Posts and that's it.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
And come up with a nice cadence where there's
breathing room in between.
But yeah you gotta be.
If you want to be the wildhorse artist which I was too,
and I would just upload whateverI felt like when I was inspired
you can do that, but it's justnot gonna grow and get traction
(40:42):
inspired.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
You can do that, but it's just not gonna grow and get
traction.
That's fair, um, I guess.
Finally, to to wrap up, um,what are the kind of things that
you're up to now that peoplemight be interested in if they
want to check you out and kindof understand, like, what you're
doing and creator dynamics?
Is it something that maybesomeone who's listening might be
interested?
Like, what kind of things areyou up to?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
thank, Thank you.
Yeah, so we serve companies andorganizations who either want
to rejuvenate, try to rejuvenateor relaunch their YouTube
channels.
And so if anybody out there isan employee of a company who you
know it's a public-facingcompany they're trying to
improve the humanness of theircompany, the humanity of their
(41:17):
company, and getting certainmessages out there or to sell a
product or service.
We're partnering with thosecompanies.
We work with PBS Frontline aswell, so larger organizations
like that, and the first thingwe do is a deep dive channel
evaluation to just get on thesame page about the health of
the channel.
And then we have other servicesof support and ongoing
(41:41):
partnership and keeping thechannel growing.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So we're going to wrap this up with one final
question.
What is your favorite channelthat you want other people to
watch?
It doesn't have to be a bigchannel, but it could be
something that you like.
I love this channel.
I want other people to watchthis channel.
It could be small, big, doesn'tmatter.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You know, can I click over to my home screen Go?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
ahead.
I'm just going to tell you whatthe algorithm tells you, right?
Yeah, yeah, we usually, weusually do that same thing.
We'll, sometimes we'll gothrough our watch histories and
figure out what was the one we'dlike a lot.
Yep, yep, um, I'm getting a lotof Saturday night live and I'm
getting a lot of um metallicadocumentaries.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I just went to a metallica show outside of
philadelphia and uh, youtube.
The algorithm right now is justlike um just delivering on all
that.
Oh my gosh I also see theriverside guy, so kudos to this
platform.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
He's great he is great and I know he follows me
on twitter and it's funnybecause, uh, he's followed me
for a couple years and I think Ihad chatted with him many years
ago and all of a sudden, I comeon the platform and his face is
right here.
I'm like wait a minute, that'sthe guy that follows me on
Twitter.
That's crazy.
I love that.
It's the creator economy andit's something that's and I
think Matt made a really goodpoint here is you should.
If you're doing this for fun,there's nothing wrong with that,
(42:54):
don.
However, what we've also saidis YouTube is definitely making
money off of your content.
100%.
They're going to make money offyour content.
No reason you shouldn't as well, and there are many different
ways of doing that.
Matt, thank you so much forjoining us, and if you have more
questions about Matt, what he'sdoing, or maybe even you want
to reach out to him, we'll leavea link to his website here in
(43:14):
the show notes and in the videodescription.
So, matt, once again, thank youso much for joining us.
Everyone else, if you're newhere, hit that subscribe button
if you like.
If you're listening to an audiopodcast, leave us a five-star
review.
You know we love those here andwe'll see y'all in the next one
.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the only podcast that
has more guests than hosts.
My name is Travis and I'm heretoday with a very special guest,
Matt Koval, who I've known fora couple of years now, and I'm
super excited to introduce youto everyone who listens to the
podcast.
Matt, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, I'm doing well.
Great to be here.
I've been a fan for a long time.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
What has been going on in your world?
I mean, we're going to get intoall the other things but, like
in the last like 30 days, what'sbeen taking up your mind space
on YouTube, like what are thecool things you're watching?
We'd love to let people knowwhat are the cool things that
we're watching.
So what's been in your watchhistory?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
if we look through your watch history, oh gosh, a
lot of stuff about homerenovation and, you know, a lot
of productivity videos andthings like that, and then, as
usual, just YouTube education,trying to stay on the cutting
edge.
A lot of the clients I workwith now are companies and
(01:00):
organizations who have certainchallenges, and so I'm always a
student of YouTube, learningfrom folks like you and others
and just picking it up where Ican.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You never stop learning, like it's just one of
those things that you can neverstop learning.
But for those of you who don'tknow, matt actually used to work
at YouTube and now has his owncompany, creator Dynamics.
We're going to talk about thata little bit later.
And we have Matt on because hehas a unique perspective of
things that, to be honest, maybetwo or three people in the
(01:34):
entire world can actually saythat they have the perspective
of Matt, which I think is supercool because, having worked at
YouTube but worked with creatorsand been a liaison between and
like there's so much of what youdid that we're so creator
focused that it's like superexciting to have you here,
because not only can we kind ofdive into what youtube valued at
that moment, but then like whatkind of things in the creator
(01:54):
economy are valued now, becausenow you've seen it from there
and now into your own company.
This is super cool.
I'm very excited about this.
So let's just dive right in.
Sounds good, all All right.
So, number one let's start offwith like how you started.
How did you start at YouTube?
Like how'd that happen?
How did you get that job, whatwere you doing?
And then we'll kind of workthrough that whole thing.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, well, it actually started.
I was one of the earliestcreators, so I started my
channel actively in 2008.
So when you talk about YouTubeOGs, I go way back with, like
Hank Green and Lisa Nova, shaneDawson, phil DeFranco all of
them and I ran a successfulchannel for about four years
(02:35):
Comedy channel, told storiesinto the camera, wore women's
wigs with a series called theFooplers, which ended up being
like quite the engine of mychannel.
And then YouTube had some kindof program called NextUp that
you could join, if you rememberthat, and I applied and you know
(02:55):
you got a grant from YouTube toyou, got funding to keep
running your channel.
And then you also got flown outto New York for workshops with
various professionals in theindustry, and that's where I met
Google employees for the firsttime.
Okay, yeah, and in an attempt tobetter monetize my channel, I
(03:16):
created what I'm pretty sure isthe very first online course
about how to succeed on YouTube.
Really, it was in 2011.
Wow, if anybody out there cancorrect me if I'm wrong, but
I've done a lot of research,I've asked a lot of OGs and
they're like, no, I can't thinkof anyone before that.
So, anyway, I sold five ticketsand that was it.
(03:40):
The cost was $47, but the fifthticket was purchased by an
executive at YouTube.
His name was Ben Rellis, verycool.
Ben reached out and he said hey, this is great, do you mind if
I share it with some colleagueshere at YouTube?
And I said sure, do they have47 bucks?
Because I'm trying to make somemoney here, man, and you are
(04:05):
Google, right?
Yeah, right.
And so they bought a coupleextra tickets.
I love it and a few other peopletook a look and next thing you
know, they invited me to applythis was 2012 for a role as a
content strategist at YouTube.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Did that position exist before that?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Not really.
They were actively in the modeof trying to teach creators and
they acquired a company calledNext New Networks and I joined
about six months later.
So I joined this Next NewNetworks team that included Ben
Rellis, vanessa Pappas who endedup running TikTok, and a lot of
(04:44):
very early influential peopleof YouTube and educators of
YouTube, and we kind of like allwrote the best practices, the
original best practices, theoriginal playbook.
If you remember, there was likea physical playbook.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And looking back I'm like, ohmy gosh, that was like some
crazy golden era.
I can't believe I stumbled intothat.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's so interesting .
So you were hired for aposition that maybe didn't exist
or, if it did, probably wasn'tas detailed as it is today.
What was that like?
Going into a corporation whohad focused on something that
maybe they didn't even fullyunderstand, didn't even fully
understand?
I mean, I say this with a lotof respect, but I mean
(05:26):
corporations and I'm not justtalking about YouTube, but
corporations which includepeople like Amazon and stuff
like that.
Dude are selling to a customer,don't always understand the
customer's experience, andYouTube is very focused on the
viewer experience, as theyshould right, because about
viewers, nothing happens.
But now you know, at this time,what 2012 was you were saying
they're looking at creators andlike how to get that kind of
(05:47):
thing flowing.
When you go into that, how doyou say, ok, these are the
things that creators need.
Because I'm a creator, beendoing it for years, I kind of
know what people need.
And how was that process?
Were they kind of like we'renot real sure about those ideas?
Or were they like let's doeverything that you'd like to do
?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
The latter To their credit.
They were Google employees, sotechnical program managers,
product managers, et cetera, andthey built this platform and
they saw all these kids growinghuge views and they're like,
none of them use the platform,which continues to be a theme
that I pressed internally,because so few people actually
(06:28):
use the platform inside YouTube.
Interesting.
It's a real disconnect.
That, I think, still is kind ofa problem.
But they put all of their.
You know, they very smartlyreached out to the next new
networks team, who became thenext lab internally at YouTube
and they said you know, hirecreator people, hire creatives,
(06:50):
bring them in.
And so this guy, ben Rellis,who was my first boss, who hired
me and he was my mentor for along time internally, it was his
job and he was determined tocreate creative strategy on
YouTube and so we created theplaybook.
(07:10):
And then also, if you've everheard of the 10 fundamentals of
YouTube, which was like an earlyprogram that we created, it was
just like the curriculum, the10 things that you need to do to
grow on YouTube and we pushedthat out, scaled that to 70
different languages and it kindof became the early fundamentals
(07:33):
which a lot of them still hold,but it was the early playbook.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So what was the kind of internal reaction to this?
After you'd been there for alittle while and were making all
these changes and beingadditive to the experience for
creators, did they even know howto measure your success, like
what was success for Googleslash YouTube?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Well, that's a great question and it's a very Google
question because everything ismeasured at Google but back then
there was a lot more investmentinto R&D research and
development and they were justlike throwing money out there
and saying you know, you know,let's not count the beans right
(08:18):
now just just come up with whatworks on YouTube, let's scale it
out.
Let's see if we can get peoplereally embracing and using this
platform, based on what we knowalready from the handful of
creators who are doing well onthe platform.
And then I thankfully I neverhad to be a part of the team
that was counting the finances.
(08:40):
I never even knew if YouTubewas financially successful back
then.
I just know that they keptencouraging us to do more and
more from a creative developmentstandpoint and coming up with
more best practices, and thenencouraging creators to thrive
on the platform.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
What was your goal in those first couple of years
coming in and being a new partof the team?
What did you want to accomplishpersonally?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, I had been a freelance filmmaker for a long
time, pursuing independentmovies.
I was writing screenplays, Iwas actually the cinematographer
on a Chris Pine independentmovie before YouTube, and so
while we were on set, heactually got the news that he
was going to be Captain Kirk inthe new Star Trek.
(09:32):
And so I thought I was goingdown this certain path, but then
the movie didn't go anywhere.
The Hollywood business was sofrustrating it really seemed
like just who you knew.
And then I got on YouTube and Ijust started having so much fun
, and so by the time I was hired, I was just so happy to have a
full-time job.
(09:53):
Okay, that's fair, that's fairand one that was around,
something that I loved, whichwas YouTube, and the tasks that
they gave me were like hey, canyou come up with best practices?
And I'm a former teacher aswell.
And so I was like are youkidding?
Yes, of course, and I don'tknow if you've ever rolled into
a Google office, but it's likefree breakfast, free lunch, free
(10:15):
snacks.
There are all these perks,there are massage chairs and
things like that.
And so the transition to goinginternally.
I was like you got to bekidding me.
This is the backup.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I felt like I was kind of swimming out in the
ocean and the ocean waves, andthen this cruise ship picked me
up and I got brought in too.
And you know we're so used toworking really hard as creators
and like, okay, I've got to geta video out by tomorrow.
And then my boss some of mybosses internally in the
beginning would be like, matt,can you do this project?
(10:49):
And I'm like sure, when youneed it tomorrow, you're like
what?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
No, three weeks from now Right, right, right right.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Can you slow play this?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, I guess, sure, yeah, if you want me to.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah.
That's just the way it goessometimes in corporations.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So what happens?
Okay, so you're in it furtheralong and then at some point and
I thought this was kind ofinteresting you had a video
presence on your like YouTube'sface in a way right, In a lot of
ways you were because you werethe one person as the liaison.
And how did that?
I want to talk about theliaison thing too.
How did that lay?
(11:29):
I want to talk about theliaison thing too.
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
and when was there a moment they're like we need you
to be on the youtube channel,kind of representing us, because
you were that guy.
Yeah, so I was there for 10years and I wasn't the creator
liaison until the last two years, interesting.
But prior to that I was, verymuch unofficially a face of
creators because, um, I helpedrun the creators channel, so I
was the lead of that channel fora while.
But also a couple of things.
I mean one we were trying toscale the best practices of
(11:54):
YouTube again and so I wouldoffer to jump on camera and just
explain them, and so my bosseswere like oh yeah, of course, I
mean, you were a creator, you'vegot you know how to talk on
camera, by all means.
The other thing was YouTubekept bombing their announcements
.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I do remember those days, yes, they would make a
change and then announce it in akind of a stuffy corporate way.
Yes, and it just would enragethe creator community.
And oftentimes, the creatorsdidn't understand why the change
was really made, and so I keptwatching that happen again and
(12:37):
again.
So this is, like you know, 2015, 16, 17.
And I said, you know, would itever be helpful if I just got on
camera and tried to clarify whywe do certain things, like why
we had to make this particularchange, what article 13 is?
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, what does that even mean?
Yeah, yeah, if anybodyremembers that, I do remember
that.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yes, Yep, the whole adpocalypse thing as well and so
I convinced some people to letme do that, and we made some
videos and that got me in touchwith the head of communications
at YouTube, who was like Matt,this, you just kind of like
solved that problem for us,which is amazing.
Have you ever thought about,you know, us creating a role
(13:21):
around, like being some sort ofambassador to creators, some
sort of go-between?
And I was like no, I hadn'tthought of that, but I'm open to
it, I'm game, yeah, yeah.
So that's the beginning of thestory, and I'm happy to explain
how the official version cameabout later.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, so you and that's actually how I think we
met was when you were doing thatrole towards the end of your
time at YouTube, and I rememberyou doing a lot of stuff on
Twitter too, so you were postinga lot on Twitter.
So I'm always curious how muchof what you had to say on the
socials and YouTube had to gothrough like legal and stuff
(14:01):
Like how often were you beingheld back by legal?
Because I used to work atAmazon for about seven years and
I know that everything wentthrough legal.
What was it like for you?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
it wasn't so much legal as it was PR or PR yeah,
pr, yeah, yeah yeah, sometimesthe PR team would be like, ah,
can you not say it that way?
Yeah and um, but I, I startedto have a track record of
success, so they started to giveme more agency in what I would
say or what I would write.
(14:31):
And it got to the point wherethey said gosh, you know, matt
kind of gets it.
He keeps landing these, really.
So let's give him more leeway,let him not use that corporate
lingo, but just be a little morestraightforward.
Him not use that corporate lingo, but just be a little more
straightforward.
And then when thecommunications team and the PR
(14:52):
team would write blog postsannouncing certain things, they
would send it right to me andthey would say Matt, can you
just carpet bomb like commentbomb this whole doc?
I love it.
And I took out things likedon't say content, say videos,
because that's what we mean.
I would just slash through allthese corporate words and
everybody internally was kind ofcheering me on and so it was
(15:12):
nice.
I mean I enjoyed a rare statusinternally as one of the few
creators who was an employee.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
So, for those who don't know what type of things
that are still being done todaywere things that you kind of
either pioneered or were part ofearly on, just to kind of
connect the dots.
So obviously, the CreatorInsider updates and stuff you
definitely had a large part ofthat.
What are the things people seetoday?
Do they not even know that youhad a hand in?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Sure, Well, I should clarify Creator Insider came
from the product organization ofYouTube.
So YouTube is kind of split inhalves.
One is like the business sideand kind of like the marketing
side, partner managers et cetera, and the other side are all the
very smart folks who do theplumbing of the platform and the
systems.
So Creator Insider actuallycame from the product side.
(16:03):
I ran the official YouTubecreators channel.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Oh yeah, Sometimes I get those confused yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, which was on the other side.
But yeah, as far as things thatstill come out, you know, if
you take a blog post, forexample, and you know it'll
always start with something likefor the last 20 years, we have
pioneered, you know, yeah, yeah,yeah, like for the last 20
years, we have pioneered, youknow, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Usually those things arewritten by like 15 different
people and there's a Google docand everybody starts chiming in
(16:33):
and then people make differentversions.
And that's the kind of thingthat I would often weigh in on
and try to just keep it real andsay guys, you know, can we not
say that?
And they would say, well,sometimes they say, well, matt,
that's not going to translateinto 50 languages, we can't use
your anecdote right there orsomething like that, that's fair
yeah, because I'm always usingmetaphors and whatnot.
(16:56):
But yeah, I mean, the teams noware just such a well-oiled
machine and they do a great job.
I still give them a little heatsometimes about some of the
announcements that come out andsometimes I wish I'm like, oh, I
wish I was still in therebecause I would have pushed back
.
I would have pushed back on howthat was said, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Like I would have said that slightly differently
if we had to do yeah, yeah, Iguess now.
So, towards the end, let's talkabout the last two years you
were there.
What kind of things were youworking on specifically and what
were?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
the things that you're really proud of that you
were able to do in that last twoyears.
Yeah, so, going back to thisunofficial role I had as this
on-camera person on behalf ofYouTube, what happened was there
was this guy who was hired onthe Google side.
His name was Danny Sullivan andhe became the Google search
liaison for Google, and so hewas a human.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
He was a human out there.
You never know anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean, if you look at these AI videos nowadays, I
don't know what to believe.
I know he was somebody who wasa journalist, who wrote about
and blogged about search enginesand they invited him to come in
internally and essentially be aliaison for Google Search.
So he would operate on Twitterand whenever there was any sort
of controversy about GoogleSearch he would jump in and say
(18:21):
hey everybody.
Don't worry, everything's fine.
I just talked to the productteam.
We're fixing this now.
And Google Pichai, ceo ofGoogle, loved it.
Sorry, sundar Pichai, ceo ofGoogle, just loved Danny because
he was able to put out firesinstantly and just explain
(18:43):
things in a very human way.
Like this happened.
We apologize, we're working onit and then follow up.
So what happened was one daySundar went to Susan Wojcicki,
ceo of YouTube, and said hey, Ilove Danny Sullivan.
Do you think we need somebodylike this for YouTube?
And Susan went to Chris, whowas the guy head of
(19:07):
communications who I had beenspeaking with about doing
something more formal aroundthis role.
And Chris said to Susan Susan,we already have him, we have
this guy.
And so they finally came to meand said Matt, it's time to make
it official.
This comes down from the top.
We'd like to formalize thisrole as the YouTube liaison, the
(19:29):
YouTube creator liaison.
So my manager and I went to workdeveloping more formally what
this role would do and not do.
Some people were a little, Ithink, threatened by the role
internally, such as the partnermanagers who were assigned to
certain creators.
They were like, wait a second,matt's not going to jump in the
(19:52):
middle of my relationship withthis and that, and then there,
there were some early roughpatches with Twitter, because
you probably know the, thehandle what is it?
Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blankthe YouTube handle where they,
they follow up and they helpeverybody.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Oh, YouTube help Team .
Youtube Team.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
YouTube.
Thank you.
So people were oftencomplaining and I would jump in,
and then Team YouTube wouldalso jump in, and so there
started to be a bit of buttingheads and there was that.
So we had to sort out certainswim lanes as to who was going
to respond, and then it veryquickly became clear to me that
(20:31):
I cannot respond to everybody.
I'm just one person, and so wehad to sort out like who was
going to respond in certainsituations on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So, with that being said, towards the end you're
like okay, things are cooking,people know who you are.
You're able to humanize theplatform in which people love,
create on, have businesses onthis thing.
That's actually changing lives.
I think we sometimes somepeople downplay how important
(21:00):
YouTube is to certain people'slives.
I just talked to a YouTuberwhich will be I don't know if
it'll be before this episode orafter Hafu Go, who employs a
team.
So it's not even the peoplethat are working for him to have
YouTube channels is thatthey're helping him, but it's
changed their lives too.
They're now doing some coolstuff.
So this platform is huge.
(21:20):
It's a big deal Changedpeople's lives.
You're working there, you'rehelping humanize it,
everything's great.
When was the moment you're likeI think it's time for me to
move on, and what was, what wasyour thought process and what
was going on in that moment?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
First of all, I didn't think I would last six
months inside a corporation as acreator.
So back when I was hired in2012, I was like it's just not
going to work because.
I'm too much of a angsty artistand you know, I'm like I'm going
to say the wrong thing or emailsomebody the wrong thing.
But you know, credit again tothe guy who hired me, ben Rellis
(21:52):
, who kind of came from thecreator world as well.
He ran a channel called BarelyPolitical which was a big comedy
channel back in the day.
But yeah, over time, you know,at a certain point I just
realized, wow, I've been herefor almost a decade inside
YouTube.
I'm still a creator, I'm stillan entrepreneur.
I kind of want to run my ownbusiness.
(22:15):
I kept getting asked to presentto various groups about YouTube.
I got asked to advise, likeFord in Detroit, like Matt, can
Matt go to Detroit to talk toFord about their YouTube
channels?
And my manager would be like no, sorry, we need him to stay
focused on this.
You know, I got invited to youknow, high schools to speak and
(22:40):
my manager, like colleges, mymanager was just like no, we
can't have you do that becauseyou have to keep staying focused
on what's driving the needleforward the most.
So I started to get very itchyabout that and then, kind of
like the golden era of YouTubewas kind of over.
So they were cutting a lot ofcreative developmental teams.
(23:00):
They shut down the wholeYouTube spaces.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, I'm still crushed about that.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, and that was such a wonderful wonderful for
anybody who doesn't know.
We had these spaces around theworld I think there were seven
or eight and they were basicallyfree production facilities for
creators to come in and justmeet each other but also shoot
videos, and it was awesome.
So I spent a lot of time inthose and they shut those down,
(23:28):
in addition to YouTube Origalsand all that.
So, unfortunately, just likeany business, over time they
started to shed away all thisR&D and kind of like creative
development type stuff.
They brought in a lot ofexecutives who were from like
McKinsey type places and theyreally tightened the ship, as
(23:48):
any corporation would do overtime, and so it was time.
It was time to go and I was veryproud that I created this role.
But I knew of people who coulddo it better than I could,
including my friend, reneeRitchie, who I recommended for
the role, and also someone likeRenee was just more comfortable
(24:12):
being in the spotlight and beingon camera a lot and receiving a
ton of attention, which I youknow, I'm again a former
filmmaker Like I prefer to bebehind the camera actually and
editing, and like that's thekind of work that I love most.
So I wasn't that comfortablejust constantly being out there
and kind of like also a punchingbag for YouTube sometimes.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I've known Rene for manyyears.
He was in my niche anyway, sobefore he got that job I had
known and I was super excitedwhen he got it.
He's such a great guy andCanadian, which means he can't
be mean, so legally he's theperfect person for that.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I've never met a Canadian who is not nice.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Literally never.
So let's talk about whathappened next.
Was there a bit of time betweenyou leaving YouTube and Creator
Dynamics being created, or didyou immediately jump right into
it, like what happened?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah well, I was terrified.
I definitely wanted to start myown company and consultancy.
But imagine you're getting agreat salary, you're getting
Google stock, and then youdecide that you're going to shut
all of that off and make nomoney.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
No thanks.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And no support, and so I was terrified of that.
So I kind of took a step downfrom a huge corporation and I
went to a platform called MightyNetworks, if you've ever heard
of that, but it's like a paidcommunity platform.
So I went from a 150,000-personcorporation at Google to a
100-person kind of startup atMighty Networks and it was a
(25:47):
great gig.
It was really interesting tolearn about a new platform.
You know, I think they wereinterested in having me join
with the hopes that YouTubecreators were going to come over
and use their product.
And I was there for a year andoverall pretty positive
experience.
But I still had that itch to goahead and start my own thing
(26:08):
and get back to my original loveof YouTube and so that ended
after about a year and then,after seeing a 100 person
company operate, I was moreconfident in starting my own
thing and so yes launch CreatorDynamics.
Initially thought I was going tojoin everybody out there who
(26:30):
was coaching creators and I waslike, oh man, how am I going to
compete against Sean Cannell andLeron and Daryl Eves Leron.
Blake.
But what happened was, becauseof my network of Google
employees, a lot of companiesstarted reaching out on YouTube.
A lot of former colleagues ofmine who work at other companies
(26:52):
now started to reach out say,hey, I didn't know, you're out
on your own, can you help uswith this company launching our
YouTube efforts?
And I said sure.
So what happened was a littleswim lane opened up that not
many in our community like toswim, in which is helping
companies and organizations withtheir YouTube channels, and so,
you know, I felt bad about kindof leaving creators.
(27:16):
But creators are in great handswith, like, all of you all and
there's so much advice out therethat I was comfortable, you
know, kind of pivoting in thatway.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, I actually like working with corporations.
I've done multiple Um and I.
I find that everything you sayis important to them, which is
really interesting.
Uh, at least the ones that Iworked with they they really do
pay attention to like everythingyou say, um, whereas some
creators will listen to what yousay and then say, well, that
wasn't my experience, I'm justgoing to ignore that whole
(27:50):
section.
And then you come back a weeklater and say, did you do these
things?
No, I didn't do that one thing.
No, you go to a corporation orsomething they've done, every
single thing you've told them,and they'll give you reports on
everything and if somethingworks.
I kind of love that, actually,and I think that people who have
not coached YouTubers and stuffhave no idea the whole other
(28:10):
side of this.
And there's even, like this,controversy and you'll see this
in comment sections on certainlearning videos and stuff.
You don't need coaches andstuff, and I agree that, like,
not everyone needs coaches.
I built my channel without acoach, but I did eventually take
coaching.
I went to Daryl's Jump Startprogram.
I wanted to understand somedeeper understandings of it.
So then when I became a coach,I was able to do a better job.
(28:33):
I feel like that gurus orwhatever it is it's starting to
become a bad word on YouTube.
I would love your thoughts andfeelings on kind of the
rejection of people who aretrying to help people you too,
cause you see, I'm sure you'veseen the videos on YouTube Like
don't look, don't listen tothese guys, don't listen.
What are your thoughts when yousee those?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I don't know that.
I've seen those videos.
I certainly know that the termguru does not have a great
connotation.
I never liked being called aguru, no.
And then some people would belike what do you mean, Matt?
You are the guru, Like you arethe YouTube guru.
Like no, I mean, I'm aneducator.
I think I just did a podcastwith Rob Wilson over there and
(29:15):
he doesn't feel comfortable withthat guru term.
No, he does not.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
He doesn't feel comfortable with that guru term
either?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
No, he does not.
You know, and look, internetmarketing has always been a
slimy business.
Some people have made it veryslimy.
It was that way before YouTube,by the way, like internet
marketing and all that, andthere are people out there who
sell courses that are justterrible.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
And they're kind of taking your money.
There are people who sellterrible programs and they're
not effective, they don't reallyknow what they're talking about
, and so that just kind ofpoisons the well for the rest of
us, unfortunately, who reallydo a great job and really take
it to heart to try to deliverand make sure people get results
, and so unfortunately you havethat kind of reputation that
(30:03):
still comes up and it's a shamebecause it hurts the rest of us.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, Now you mostly work with corporation YouTube
channels.
Would you say that?
Or do you work with a mixturenow?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I would say like medium-sized companies.
A couple corporations have comearound.
Youtube came around which isfunny.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Can you tell that story?
Because that's just hilarious.
That actually kind of happenedto me too, but I want to hear
your story.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Well, I remember when I was a strategist that there
were a lot of internal teamsasking for my support, and again
my manager, who often actedlike my agent.
I feel like would be like no,you can't have Matt, and so I
understand that certainpriorities, there are certain
priorities inside a corporationand but but teams are all like.
(30:53):
Google has like 40 YouTubechannels, 40 or 50 across
different products.
I think Gmail has a channel, Ithink you know 40 or 50 across
different products.
I think Gmail has a channel, Ithink you know Gemini has a
channel, and on and on, and at acertain point you know there
aren't enough internal YouTubeexperts to help all the
properties that Google owns froma YouTube perspective.
(31:14):
So, basically, one of the mainYouTube channels reached out,
namely YouTubecom slash YouTube.
Oh, wow, wow, wow and asked ifwe could do a full channel
analysis and evaluation based onbest practices.
So it was funny coming back inI knew half the people still and
(31:36):
it was like hey, everybody,great to be back.
That's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
How long after you left did that happen?
And it was like hey, everybody,great to be back.
That's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
How long after you left.
Did that happen?
That was, I think, about a yearand a half later.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
So not even that long .
So what was just out ofcuriosity, just the bullet
points, what were some of thethings you had them kind of fix
Like?
What were the things that theyhad to focus on that maybe they
weren't even aware of?
Is there anything that's easyto explain?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, so this is a typical situation with a
corporate-owned channel.
They had abused the channelover the years.
They would just kind of use itfor marketing videos and they
would upload those rewind videosRemember those rewinds.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And so they would have like a big marketing
campaign where they would floodthe channel with like 50 videos
and then leave it alone for twoyears or something like that oh
my gosh or a year, and then adifferent campaign.
They would start and flood thechannel again with a whole
different series and so,unfortunately, you had this
massive channel with a ton ofsubscribers I think something
(32:39):
like 43 million subscribers butthe formats were all over the
place.
Who knows what the audiencereally wanted at that point,
because it was so many differentpeople had subscribed and what
happened.
So it was a case of trying togive them an overview and a
clear perspective of the healthof that channel and which
(33:00):
direction they should go with anew series they were launching.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I love that.
So a lot of the people thatlisten to the uh, the podcast
are newer creators or smallercreators trying to grow, and one
of the things that we hearsometimes is um, and we try to,
we try to bust the myths here,but a lot of people will say,
well, YouTube, uh, there'll beone of two things on the
negative side of things, whichis like YouTube doesn't care
about small creators, which wetry to explain why that's not
(33:24):
true.
So I definitely want to getyour thoughts on that.
And then the other thing whichI think is really interesting is
YouTube's after me.
They're shadow banning me there.
They don't like my uploads, sothey they hide me from people
You've been there.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on these.
Let's start with the YouTubedoesn't help small creators
thing and tell me your thoughtson that.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
I haven't been a small creator in a while, but I
will tell you and maybe thiswill come as a surprise to you,
travis but after being on theoutside now and very much in the
trenches with a lot of channels, I feel it more than I did
internally.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You do feel it, you do feel it.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yes, because people will come to me with channels
that are dead as a doornail.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
And I coach them through all of the things and I
do all the things.
I like to think that I knowquite a bit about what makes a
good video and CTR and retentionand all these things, and damn,
if we can't lift up some ofthese channels Been there.
Yeah, it's rough, and sothere's a big debate in our
community.
(34:24):
I don't know that you and Ihave talked about it, but is
there such a thing as a deadchannel?
And to me, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, I've seen them.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
I've argued with folks internally at YouTube on
the search and discovery team.
They said, no, anybody canrevive a channel.
I'm like there's no way,because some of these are just
so ruined by ads, like paid ads.
And I call it old channelsyndrome as well.
If a channel has been aroundfor a long time, they've
(34:55):
uploaded multiple differentformats, they've tried different
things, they took a year off onand on Like at that point, if
you upload a new video and youcan't get past 100 views, just
start over.
Just start the thing over slate, with the algorithm, with your
(35:18):
branding and knowing that you'regoing to go in a very
straightforward, focuseddirection, instead of trying to
restart this channel that hasall this baggage from multiple
years and multiple videos andwho knows what kind of fans over
the years.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So there was a creator in one of our earlier.
So we did an episode on ourDiscord where we talked to
actual creators and they hadasked us questions and there was
a creator on there.
And when I say this number,you're not going to believe me,
but it's 100% true.
This content creator had 50,000videos and I know, I know and I
think they were under like1,000 subscribers and we're like
(35:58):
there just comes a time whenmaybe time, maybe your folk, as
long as you're passionate aboutit, you're enjoying it, cool.
My thought is, if you're doingit to grow, this might be a sign
and there are every once in awhile you'll see channels just
like that that, um, that's thecase.
Do you think now, despite thefact that competition is higher
now than it ever has been, thatit's easier or harder to grow a
(36:22):
channel from zero than it usedto be, maybe eight, ten years
ago?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Oh, it's definitely harder.
I mean, it's just supply anddemand.
You know we got to keep it real.
Yeah, I love that and you know,I think a lot of people
internally will still think well, you know, it's never been a
wonderful time, Like it's nevertoo late to start, and I believe
that it's never too late tostart Right.
But if you look at the videos,that would succeed.
(36:50):
You know when I started, 2008compared to now, like the
quality and the length is justincredible.
The quality and the length isjust incredible.
And so you really really haveto dig deep if you want to
(37:17):
succeed.
As a new, try to find someunique perspective or niche down
on the audience, Make yourvideos double the length of most
of the competitors or somethinglike that.
But absolutely it's tough outthere.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So what is your general advice to a new content
creator or smaller, strugglingcontent creator?
Is it give up?
Or is it something like I'msorry, this is not for you.
You need to go get that job,yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Well, I'm glad you asked because I don't want to
just be negative, nancy, here.
Um, so I love the channels nowthat only get a couple hundred
views per video but havesomething to sell in in in way
like a product or service, and Ilove that.
You know, I've met channels outthere and creators who are
(38:09):
making incredible money and theyreally only get like two or 300
views per video.
So I always say use YouTube toyour benefit.
Don't let YouTube use you Like.
Don't just chase views for noreason because you're just
becoming, you know you're like alittle engine of their platform
(38:29):
.
Still love them, but you'relike a little engine of their
platform and you're not gettinga return on all that time and
energy and if you really look,count the hours that you're
putting in.
If that's your goal, like ifyou just want views and exposure
and you have a job on the sidethat you're fine with great.
I mean, if you're enjoying itand if you're getting something
out of it, by all means keepgoing.
(38:51):
But I'd encourage people,sooner than later, to really
make it worth it by havingsomething to sell.
That said, I remember when Iwas younger I didn't have
anything to sell.
I just wanted views.
I just wanted attention andcomments.
And if that's what you want,just own it, embrace it.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, I think it's important to understand the
difference between and I alwaystalk about setting expectations.
Sometimes we'll talk tochannels that just do random
things.
I like to do all thesedifferent things.
Okay, fine, then set yourexpectations in line with what
you're doing.
If you're doing random things,you should expect random things
to happen.
If you're doing a focused thing, you can expect, hopefully,
some good success yeah, I, Iwould never recommend random no,
(39:37):
I never do, but if someone isreally good, there are people
that are like but I did, this isjust what I want to do, okay,
well, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yeah, I mean, we'll take the company classic company
view here.
Um, a lot of companies come toyoutube and they think they're
going to program their channellike a tv channel.
Yes, you're like, I'm going toupload six different shows for
six different audiences.
It's going to be great.
We're going to upload sixdifferent shows for six
different audiences.
It's going to be great.
We're going to upload threeepisodes a day.
And you know, youtube was justnever made to handle that type
(40:07):
of programming.
You really want to be as narrowas possible.
I'm not even a fan of doingshorts and live streams and all
of the things.
Like I'm old school, like Ilove long form and community
posts.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Posts and that's it.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
And come up with a nice cadence where there's
breathing room in between.
But yeah you gotta be.
If you want to be the wildhorse artist which I was too,
and I would just upload whateverI felt like when I was inspired
you can do that, but it's justnot gonna grow and get traction
(40:42):
inspired.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
You can do that, but it's just not gonna grow and get
traction.
That's fair, um, I guess.
Finally, to to wrap up, um,what are the kind of things that
you're up to now that peoplemight be interested in if they
want to check you out and kindof understand, like, what you're
doing and creator dynamics?
Is it something that maybesomeone who's listening might be
interested?
Like, what kind of things areyou up to?
Speaker 2 (40:56):
thank, Thank you.
Yeah, so we serve companies andorganizations who either want
to rejuvenate, try to rejuvenateor relaunch their YouTube
channels.
And so if anybody out there isan employee of a company who you
know it's a public-facingcompany they're trying to
improve the humanness of theircompany, the humanity of their
(41:17):
company, and getting certainmessages out there or to sell a
product or service.
We're partnering with thosecompanies.
We work with PBS Frontline aswell, so larger organizations
like that, and the first thingwe do is a deep dive channel
evaluation to just get on thesame page about the health of
the channel.
And then we have other servicesof support and ongoing
(41:41):
partnership and keeping thechannel growing.
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So we're going to wrap this up with one final
question.
What is your favorite channelthat you want other people to
watch?
It doesn't have to be a bigchannel, but it could be
something that you like.
I love this channel.
I want other people to watchthis channel.
It could be small, big, doesn'tmatter.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
You know, can I click over to my home screen Go?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
ahead.
I'm just going to tell you whatthe algorithm tells you, right?
Yeah, yeah, we usually, weusually do that same thing.
We'll, sometimes we'll gothrough our watch histories and
figure out what was the one we'dlike a lot.
Yep, yep, um, I'm getting a lotof Saturday night live and I'm
getting a lot of um metallicadocumentaries.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
I just went to a metallica show outside of
philadelphia and uh, youtube.
The algorithm right now is justlike um just delivering on all
that.
Oh my gosh I also see theriverside guy, so kudos to this
platform.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
He's great he is great and I know he follows me
on twitter and it's funnybecause, uh, he's followed me
for a couple years and I think Ihad chatted with him many years
ago and all of a sudden, I comeon the platform and his face is
right here.
I'm like wait a minute, that'sthe guy that follows me on
Twitter.
That's crazy.
I love that.
It's the creator economy andit's something that's and I
think Matt made a really goodpoint here is you should.
If you're doing this for fun,there's nothing wrong with that,
(42:54):
don.
However, what we've also saidis YouTube is definitely making
money off of your content.
100%.
They're going to make money offyour content.
No reason you shouldn't as well, and there are many different
ways of doing that.
Matt, thank you so much forjoining us, and if you have more
questions about Matt, what he'sdoing, or maybe even you want
to reach out to him, we'll leavea link to his website here in
(43:14):
the show notes and in the videodescription.
So, matt, once again, thank youso much for joining us.
Everyone else, if you're newhere, hit that subscribe button
if you like.
If you're listening to an audiopodcast, leave us a five-star
review.
You know we love those here andwe'll see y'all in the next one
.
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