#187 Shan Hanif – The Mastermind Behind Your Favourite Creator

They want you to have more accounts , so in that way , there's nothing wrong with it , because that's what the platforms are designed for that is Shan Hanif .

He's now on kickoff sessions , helping agency owners and creators scale their brand and business . Let's get into it .

How has it been for you connecting with people like Iman Thurston , ali Abdaal ? How has that experienced been since building GenFlow seven years ago ?

The idea that you can sell content behind a paywall is something that I pretty much came up with in 2016 and built a tech platform that allows to do that . So today you see your TGP , your Kajabis and all that stuff .

Essentially , I built the exact same tech in GenFlow and we started using that to sell content with creators , and that's where the business began . So , yeah , obviously it's amazing who we work with today and the stuff we've do sold 200 million dollars , the total reach of 300 million audience . But , yeah , I've been here from the very beginning .

So it's all as I guess I always thought it would be that if you have an audience , I think it's the most powerful thing in the world , and that's exactly what ended up happening , and so it's like it's different the feeling of knowing something and then kind of proving it to myself that I was right .

So that's why it's like I have it from first principles . I was making websites right at the beginning , making PCs , making websites and then buying and selling stuff online . And I was selling stuff in days where Amazon and eBay didn't have any rules . You could sell anything .

You could actually sell something fake , like there was no copyright , there was no sorry piracy , there was no nothing you could do whatever you want . It was the wild west of the internet . So , yeah , growing up , I made a lot of money .

So I've always understood , because I always was worried about how do you get traffic to your listing on eBay , how do you get traffic to your page on Amazon ? How do you get traffic to your website ?

Actually , before streaming was even a thing , I set up a thing called dot com radio and from 2004 till six , me and my friends were sitting and streaming every single day . Like it's crazy to think that now streaming is this big thing . It was before .

It was a thing we would sit together and stream because we figured out how to online and we just sit and mess around and have sound boards and lots of other stuff , so it's before you can make money from it . It was just like a passionate thing of like we're doing something new .

It's almost like how the Web 3 people today you know were like oh no , this is the new world , it's like that . But then so yes , I think how did I know because I knew how hard is it to sell online that if you were to have an audience , you will have people's attention and you'll be able to convert that into people buying something off you .

So it was always been the arbitrage of . That is what I understood from the early days . So that's why I was fascinated with that . Secondly , it was I was a massive forum user , from 4chan to Reddit to bodybuildingcom . So again , seeing the same behaviors that people trust people , not accomplished people . So not some author on Amazon .

People are trusting this guy posting X on some forums , sorry and yeah . So I guess just having that innate knowledge . So when I first started the business . The idea was this thing happens on forums . When it falls into social , it's only going to blow up . So that was always the thinking .

Obviously , there's so many steps to go through from there and now it's a normal thing and everyone knows it and it's hard to understand what a world was like back then . But that's kind of like how I kind of fell into it .

But when you started connecting with these people , what was their business like in the beginning or what was like the revenue that they were doing ? So , let's say , a random creator were they like really struggling before they integrated with you and did they have any idea about how to craft offers and craft businesses ?

We were like the first monetization for a creator because the market was so new . Over time now there's two types of creators .

So either you have yourself starter creators who are smart , they get it , they want to get online , they want to start selling something , and so we work with those guys and help them scale , because operationally , you can only go so far if you're trying to hire your own team , become the CEO , set everything up , because there's just levels of operations , levels of

execution , which you can only achieve through experience and knowing shit like deeply . So now I help a lot of creators , like Ali Abdel . I've started helping him . He's a part-time YouTuber Academy working on scaling that for him .

So , like now , we're taking existing creator businesses and taking them to the next level , while still taking on the evergreen fresh creator who's just blown up and everything is going right for them and helping them make money . It could be one way . It could be multiple ways .

One of the ways is digital , meaning you're selling content behind a paywall with some experience , and that can be all custom . Or it can be a physical brand and you're manufacturing the product , distribution and the whole lot . Or it could be . A third way is that you help you work with major brands I'm talking like Dior , jim Shark , etc .

So like just elite brands . We bring them in to work with like special creators . So it's kind of three ways . You help creators monetize and the truth is generally it's people we call them mega creators . Creators that can sell at least like 250,000 pounds a year is what we would work with . That's like the minimum threshold .

So if you think we can't sell that much , then we wouldn't sign them . And we're kind of lucky to be at like the upper echelon of the market and there's lots of people have lots of ways to make money . But we're more in the game of like how do we do something big , big , which is essentially going to make millions of dollars ?

So whether it is like Mike Terson shorts , for instance , or like completely different fields or software , so you're building out all these different software manufacturing businesses . What got you the breadth of this ? Because I know you mentioned that you did like internships in software companies . I was quite similar . I worked for Revolut as a product .

I wanted to Revolut for many years . So I get product , I get software . But getting software is much different than fucking building it and scaling it and so on and so forth . So what gave you that breadth of knowledge ?

So when it comes to making active way or making supplements or making whatever you can then use , I guess , the skill that I had and then you enhance it and then you hire people into . You know , I've got a nutritionist who's working on the formulations and we're coming up with this drink or that product or these supplements , so you lead into it .

But you know , when listing as well , that's the perfect way to figure out how to scale . Your business is like what do I know ? What do I know ? Enough of that ? I could potentially jump on Versus like I don't know , let's say , using AI right now .

If you're not that type of person , we just do it because everyone you're seeing it around you're probably going to struggle to build into something actually like market leading , with tech . Again , being in tech from the very beginning , I've worked with different software businesses , so made an app myself .

So when the opportunity came to do it , it just was a no brainer and yes . So today we create one of the best softwares in the world . I've created many fitness apps hit number one on the app store , been featured by Apple , lots of game changing stuff . Right now , our course technology is better than most of the unicorn startups . You can't record a video .

You'll get blocked . You can't take a screenshot of the course . Just lots of smart ways of doing stuff . Again , the focus has always been about creators , so we can be more bespoke with stuff that we need to build and what we need to do . So I tell you the way I describe it . So we sell everything that you can buy through social media .

So if that is in physical products , that would be then clothing , it would be supplements , it would be some accessories , it would be fashion dresses , etc . Active wear . It's just things that you would buy through social because that makes sense for us .

Same with software it's more about content behind a paywall , but then that can get wrapped up in so many exciting ways . It can be , I guess , content . There's lots of ways to think about it . It's like the way you enrich it .

So it could be the only fans way , which is like it's a feed of content , or it could be a course and it's like structured content , or it could be content that's drip fed over a certain period of time with certain things , or it could be content baked around features like a monk mode or something else . So that's the thinking .

It's like how do we build around , how to elevate the thing , if that makes sense , and build a good product for people to come and buy ? So that's the thinking basically . It's not random .

So we say no to so many things because , like I had someone saying , like Sidemen chocolate , for instance , and it's like I don't think that's for us for various different reasons , because it's retail , it's low margin , it's this and that . So yeah , it just depends on that .

Cause , for instance , like I run a podcast agency , we do sponsorships as well . We do a few different things . Growing those verticals independently is obviously challenging . Right , it's a growing independent businesses . So for you , like , how did you scale GenFlow from that perspective ?

Because you know , new creator , new clothing , new stitching , new software , all this kind of stuff that comes with it , right , all right , people , we're just going to take one short break for the little update about podcast university . So if you enjoy podcasts like this and you want to start your own podcast , head into the links down below the pockets university .

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So by having , like , very targeted individuals who have experience in that field and then setting up the operations and I'm very big on operation , so I like everything done a certain way . We have a saying that we want to be McDonald's . You want things to be done the way it's always done . So a big Mac is made the exact same way in every McDonald's .

It doesn't matter what the guy thinks , doesn't matter what the guy making it , and that's the biggest problem with operations . Any company scaling , you'll have people who start to want to do it their way and you have to have a line of this is how we do it . So if we don't track it in the sauna , it's not a task .

If this is not done like this , it's not a thing . If it's not being reviewed by a second person , no , it can't go out the door . So like having set principles in the business and then allowing each department to kind of tweak the operations below . That is being the success of it and it's probably the hardest thing we went from .

I hired 65 people in one year . We went from 35 to like almost a hundred in 12 months . We were having like four people start on the same day in the company . So after going through that , it was mainly around . Yeah , I guess we chased the scale .

You make a lot of mistakes , but mainly I would say it's process and having core principles which you cannot deteriorate from , and how you have to believe in them . They have to come from you , the founder , and there's not right or wrong . It's like how you like things done .

You actually got to be a lot strict with that and you think you do , because when you have the idea that hire good people and they'll come and do it for you , like I completely am against that , that's not it . That's what people say .

Sitting here after a thousand interviews , 300 hires , 100 team , you definitely should not let people come and tell you what to do . That is the wrong . That's going to ruin your business . And so I would say going through scale , like I said , it's McDonald's , because that's what works .

That's how you scale something which is going to like work over different time zones , different places , different people , different cultures . It's impossible to control that , because there's always the one guy who's like , yeah , I don't need to write it down , I know what I'm doing . Right , I'll do it .

He's got his own way of working so yeah , so that's been my biggest learning of that .

So if you're going to hire someone , they have one specific role and that's it and over time you might adjust whatever , but you're hiring for a particular role , not just hiring on talent , because then that's how he has grown his agency as a result .

So that's kind of similarities and I feel like for you , 200 or 1000 interviews , you're going to see that top talent straight away and be able to position them correctly . I want to shift gears into the content aspect . So you're looking at an audio , so let's make this very particular towards content creators , even like myself . I'm at 53k subscribers on YouTube .

I want to get towards 100k . I want to keep building that . I want to keep building that tribe and potentially even work with Jen Flo at some stage . How would you advise someone like myself who wants to build that audience ? I'm just going to pull up your channel .

I don't know if you do this and I'm not going to do that , I'm not , I guess , in this podcast , haven't seen ? Maybe you have thought about it . I would go as far as my one advice would be in the podcast space reverse engineer the titles and thumbnails before the episode . So already think of don't do it the other way around .

I'll do a really good episode , try my best and then , whatever comes out of it , I would do it the other way and be completely selfish .

So you , almost in another world , need to be asking the things that you know is going to be clickbait , you know is going to get views and A from your own intuition , b from keyword analysis , using all the vidIQs and TubeBuddies , et cetera , and seeing all this thing works .

So , for example , then you can ask me a question of I don't know , do agencies get to 10K a month and is it hard to scale from there ? And maybe there's something in there that has a lot of search volume , or is it you're asking me ? You work with Logan and KSI who's your favorite , who's the worst ?

And you're trying to get me to say something that could be more clickbait for you . So my advice on podcasts is complete that . So Chris Williamson , who I work with , that's been one of the biggest drivers of his growth is that it's very strategic .

You don't do an episode if you can't get good content , titles and thumbnails out of it , because YouTube is 99% titles and thumbnails . So that'll be my objective complete .

First thing , because I think most likely you're not doing it in that perspective , because when you send me what we're going to talk about , if that was done in that way , you would have like and you know where you're trying to get out of me . I mean , you'll see this in some podcasts and it's the same for the guest and smart guests who get on podcasts .

They should answer things so well , because I'm going to clip this and I want to put it on mine . So really , when two people come to a podcast , both need to be selfish and leave so they can post the best content . Ultimately , that's what we're doing it for , right , and so I think that's the reality of creating content .

Of course you want to build relationships , you want to have a nice conversation , you want to answer stuff , you want to help people , like that's all a given . I'm saying after that the real difference between the top 1% of creators and the rest is that everything is strategic and people don't realize that .

Like , which event you go to , who do you stand next to ? Did you take the picture ? Like , did you post it ? Are you going to post it afterwards ? Like everything has to be thought about ? And when we think like that , about all these things , then things happen for those people .

So that will be my general observation for any creator who is ingrained as fast or whatever , because that's how you can start to get there .

Very clear , very concise , and this isn't just about podcasting , right . You have people like Mike , who creates more vlogs , more everyday stuff , and his content then is about resonance and builds a tripe . But as you are looking for these creators , what are they ?

I guess Characteristics not necessarily metrics , but the characteristics of a creator you want to work with . I know you mentioned that you don't like when people get caught up in bullshit online , so what would be some of the characteristics you'd be looking for ?

So I guess if you don't have 70% same sex following , if you're not growing at least like 5% to 10% growth rate monthly , especially in the early days , you're not on the right track , meaning you're not growing , you're not putting in the work and you're not building the right people .

You want to find as many people that are more just like you , because that is the easiest way for you to scale . People get it wrong . Is that they're thinking it can be anybody . It's like no , you have to really define your ideal person .

So the location , where they're from , what do they do , where do they shop , like all that stuff that you would normally do in a branding exercise almost you should do in a content perspective . Second thing would be what I look for is can I see the unique point of view of this individual very fast ?

So can't do I know who they are , where they're from , what do they believe in ? Do they have a dog , a cat , boyfriend , girlfriend , whatever . The more transparent you are and the faster you can realize that about someone , the easier it would be for you .

There's always going to be some anomalies to that where someone just became amazing at something and they blew up , but generally that is the thing that we look for and I've seen the most sales on the back end from . So that last story . It seems . Any artist right , who do you listen to ? Any artist . You know the story .

They got shot nine times , or this happened , or there used to be a drug dealer . Then this happened Like . You know this story Even so . That's why Gary Vee and every interview will be like you know , I moved when I was young as an immigrant to America .

And how many times is told the same story again and again , and again and again , because then everybody knows it . So your story is very important . So when I'm watching someone's content , even stumbling upon you , it's hard .

Obviously this is a podcast channel , like get it , but at the same time , if there was something about you , then you will draw to it that much more than like . Why this guy ? Because you don't just want to be a presenter . That's probably one of the worst things you can become . If they're known and know who you are right .

So and there's only so many people can be like the top presenters , right , like in reality . So that's what I would say . I think outside of that would be their ability to speak on camera , how intimidating they are or how manipulative they can be in just the way they speak , the way they carry themselves , and outside of that is just the hustle .

So most creators lack the work ethic and that comes through seeing how often people post and how long they've done something , for that's like baseline stuff . Obviously , lots of other depends on stuff , but that's what I would say . Yeah , that's what we look for .

But having that personality , so the story behind kickoff sessions to help younger people live a richer and more filling life because I was working in finance and bored out of my head , depressed out of my head , moved out , built a podcast , built a brand around it .

And funny , you mentioned that about the personality , because that's a big issue I have with podcasts Someone who runs a podcast company , right ? Is that it's very hard to pull out that story . And you may be familiar with Jack Hopkins . He's good friends with Iman .

Jack sat me down and he said people don't listen to your podcast for you , they listen for the guest . But you should get to a point where people say what is Darren going to ask Sean ? That's what you want to be thinking and that's how you want to be thinking , true .

Now , looking from your observation , if you look at people like Chris Williamson , how do you think he has that factor that 99.99% of podcasters don't have ?

Like there's going to be a couple of those that build that personality and that ultimately comes from practice and being able to ask the right questions .

I think in Chris's thing , of course , you're knowing him personally is a very smart guy , so that just allows him to be one step ahead in the interview to understand what I need to ask here and , almost live , be able to create the content that's required to make the episode better .

Then , of course , it's bringing like the right people on and then it's just a planning and strategy , like I said . So it's real thought into the strategy of the interview is what I would say the difference is . But even to him I say the exact same thing that we need to work on . We're discussing a second channel , discussing other ways , how to build profile .

We've got a tour coming up . That's a great way to connect with people now , etc . But yes , it's a challenge that even he has to overcome , which is how do people get to know him and his story and what he's about , because he's on this journey of absolute exponential growth .

You might as well continue this and then look to start the other side , and that's his unique opportunity because he done so well on the podcast side , but that's very hard to mimic . If it was somebody else , I would 100% say that you start doing your own stuff whilst doing that .

If that's an episode every now and then which is about yourself , that will still be easier , better versus going pure guests , because then it's all about the mercy of the size of the guests , right , and every person in the journey gets a catalyst guest or two . So it's tough from that perspective .

I want to ask you about the intersection between the interest of the guest so I say Chris Williamson and the interest of the audience in terms of building a business around us . How do you think about this ? How do you analyze this when you're working with a creator ?

So if you are a company or you are an enterprise looking to grow your brand and looking to grow your podcast , feel free to reach out to work with us at Vox . What we do is a fully fledged end-to-end management of our podcast . We take care of the strategy , the consulting , we take care of the growth , the management .

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That's so natural for her to create content about being productive and then actually living the life of being trying to be the best productive you possibly can . In that she ended up coming up with a method which we call the productivity method is literally how she has designed her day and how she works , and then we turned that into a product and we sold it .

That's the best alignment of what you actually care about and then you can make content on that because you care about it and you understand it deeply , and then you could sell a product out of it at the end of it . That's the best suite of things . Same with Ali Abdel built a YouTube channel , knows YouTube inside out , calls about YouTube . It's aligned .

We have some other things coming up with Ali as well very soon in the next couple of weeks , and it'll be super aligned to what he cares about , talks about , does . So I think that's the ultimate thing .

What way it's going to go wrong is when someone is doing a third party , or if it's someone that puts makeup on all the time , then working with Mac and doing her own collection makes complete sense , because that's why people watch . That's why I hate content which is not relevant . So someone does meme content , someone's reacting to something .

So many channels are just reacting and hating on people and get views . They cannot make any money , so we don't really touch those creators . So I'm only interested in the real , genuine creators who actually understand themselves enough and then they can talk about that in depth and that leads to so many business opportunities basically linked to that one thing .

Hence why I really liked fitness in the beginning , because fitness people generally are experts . So my person generally knows enough about exercise and food to look the way he does , naturally . So that means we could sell that . It was so aligned in the early days because they had actual expertise and you couldn't monetize that .

So that's always been my thing Like if you don't have any knowledge , you're just a cool creator , you're entertaining , there's ways to make money . You can make money from the platforms . You'll get some brand deals . Maybe you'll be able to sell something here or there . You'll just be able to sell millions of dollars unless you have a skill .

And that's what interests me about the space and the things that I focus on , because I guess I'm a nerd at heart . So I actually do smart things with other people who are going to be smart on the other side , because then you can actually do real cool stuff Versus just a cool creator .

Hence why I don't work with someone on TikTok who's just dancing and has like 20 million , because I don't know what I'll do with that person . Besides , they can wear some converse and get paid for it while they're dancing Like there's nothing else . So my whole thing is being the build right following it's unlimited ocean of money available for you .

he created Grill of Mind , it seemed like it was just quite natural for him , but he had already built a profitable business from just knowing so much about pharmacology . There was just so much different aspects here which made him become a category of one , an industry leader , and it was just natural .

I really want to touch on the hate side of things because I don't know if you're familiar with apology , he was the CTO of Coinbase a really big guy on Twitter .

His book is coming out recently and I recorded with Eric who wrote the book and he is a phrase that if it enrages , it engages , and it really kind of stuck with me because I'm really against that stuff . I'm really against all the hating on particular people to grow , because you know what causes frustration , polarizing views and how algorithms are built .

To some degree , if there's a lot of hate comments but positive likes , it'll take off and all songs like this . So how do you think about that when creators go down that Derek rabbit hole of just trying to get reactions from people ? And would you cut a creator ?

Again , going back to music or authors , people that build very followings , let's call it they have some sort of view , like rappers , want to live a certain lifestyle , they want to have lots of girls , they want to have this right . These are all views .

These are all opinions of how they want their shit to be , and that then makes you like oh , I like this person , I want that shit too . So I think there's a line which is yeah , if you're just hating on people and reacting to them and making like that sort of content , that is just no . Personally , I don't think that works .

What does work I think what he means by the statement is is having opinions which may be polarizing , which then brings in viewers , brings in debate , brings in this , but it's like somebody saying don't calorie count , right ? So that's like an opinion which is like what ? Like what are you talking about ?

And people want to listen to be like this can't be true Versus . You're just hating on a person or a thing just so . I think there's a way about it .

If you can give a calculated , educated opinion on something that's actually amazing , and we I want our creators to do that more , because that will divide people , will make some people unfollow , they'll make people fall in love with you even more . Anything that adds depth to you as a person and your narrative online and your story online .

It's only going to help you grow bigger . Fundamentally because people are watching you and your content more than they'll see their own parents or family or friends . So there's so much opportunity to build our trust . If you look at the stats , six hours a day is spent by Gen Z on a mobile phone .

73% of purchases online are recommended by creators now , so it's not Google . That's not how you find you want to buy something . It's through creators , which means it's through content . So there's a lot of power there . So you want to figure out how do I build that depth ?

Like what can I say out loud which is not going to get me in trouble but , at the same time , is going to make people lean to me that much more , lean to me that much more , even with stuff that's going on right now in the world , you have people like DJ Khaled , who's Palestinian , who's not put up one single post about what's going on , and he's

Palestinian , which is crazy , which makes you just think right , he's so afraid to have an opinion , which is making people not like him , because how can you not have an opinion on something which should matter to you so much ? He's not doing it . So I think I would say don't be that sort of creator .

Don't be the creator who doesn't have an opinion that actually genuinely has one and you're being silent about it because you're scared or worried or don't want to share it . The more you're willing to do that in the right way , the more depth you will build . We saw that with the whole and rotate stuff . Right , he's just having opinions that are polarizing .

They made hundreds and millions of people be like , yes , I agree with him , and then on the other side , no , but at the same time , he's not hating on individual people as much , not saying you know , whatever he's doing or whatever as a suggested thing At the same time , yes , I think it's definitely for the right people , it could work really well .

Put it that perspective .

And because I've had the discussion with him and it was about the same thing about legitimacy versus just money around the topic of if you say such polarizing stuff , it's going to be harder for the normal world to then want to work with you for different things . But if you have , so it just depends on what your personal goal is .

Right , because he was selling content behind a paywall and that's the only major revenue online that's called it that you want to have , then I guess the strategy works . And then what was ? The strategy is ? Yes , go onto people's episodes or podcasts , be as amazing as you possibly can be , and then cut that up and spread that on 7,000 different accounts , right ?

So yeah , it would work , but you'd have to be willing to be that person and forever to get those views across by what you're saying . Again , so I think that depends on the person . But as a strategy . If you were to remove what he's saying as context and just look at what the thing was all about , reach right .

So right now , if your podcast channel had you had 700 other accounts on YouTube posting the same content and clips , would you have more reach ? You would Well more people know about you . They would . So if you have the means to do that , that's the beauty of online and social media . Social media platforms want you to post more content .

They want you to have more accounts . So in that way , there's nothing wrong with it , because that's what the platform is designed for . But it's not the way . I guess everyone has learned how to make and spread content . Right , you have your channel , you make your posts and that's that . But this is like gaming social media through distribution .

So I guess that's probably the lesson here for anyone learning things . It's not about what he said , it's just , I guess , the strategy behind what's smart and it worked . So , yeah , bye .

These lines are going to be amazing and I'm going to find some time to say it . But again , that's just being smart . It's like a sales call right Get on a client , no matter what the client is asking you . At some point you're going to start saying I have done this , I have done that , I can help you like this , I can do this for you .

It's a very similar thing . I guess you've got to be in sales mode , selling your personal brand , of course .

They're talking about the same concepts , right , and now , reading those books and looking at hate stuff over the last two years , you can clearly see that logical explanation of him positioning himself as authority , him having the experience from kickboxing as well as like an entrepreneurship space , being able to help other people , so like the social proof , and then

packaging this together led to this like virality effect of just craziness . It was like one of the most crazy things of all time . So it's kind of like it's like the perfect ingredients to like a fucking two virality is basically all put together , whereas that would be a contrast with other people , right .

A lot of people that you work with , for instance , like Mike . I've heard Mike say on a podcast he's like I don't want nothing to do with , like drama online . He's like I just don't want nothing to do with it .

And that's quite interesting , right , because two people that grew obviously one bigger than the other , but two different strategies and got to a very big position as a result .

It's the same as business , right , if you just think of it as a business , not businesses growing different speed , different ambition , different goals and it's the same as being a creator . So it just really depends on you and what you're trying to do .

Mike is very he likes to do what he wants to do , he wants to be comfortable with that , he wants to live the lifestyle that he likes and he won't jeopardize that because of more ambition in business , for instance .

So everyone has their own understanding of what they truly want Same as me for my business , and I think so that's what all comes down to is not right or wrong . There are different abilities . So Mike also is value based content .

He had value and that's what he gave to grow his audience and that's probably one of the best ways , because he can sit and talk to camera and make a video and actually say something useful for somebody . Not that many people can do that . So I think that's the skill to really train which will be worth a lot Ultimately .

a lot my speech and getting across a message , whether it's a real or a long form video . So I find it quite funny how that's like one of the core areas that people struggle with , because that's a big part of the business , right . Let's talk about how we switched from the creator to the entrepreneur and that transition .

So you mentioned audience building , which we talked about . Business opportunities , audience growth , higher revenue , more capital to invest in your content , business . How do you get people to switch that mindset between I'm just going to create and I'm going to become an entrepreneur ?

He's studying , still at university . So you go through this natural phase of this is working . I need to make another real , I need to make another video , I need to keep chasing and you to keep doing it .

What I mean by the inflection point is because when you like , holy shit , this actually is now actually working and it's not going away , it's not like after two days , after two weeks , after two months , you have a fear of it's going to stop . Followers are going to stop , views are going to stop , and I'm explaining the mindset of a creator that's growing .

Then you'll start to make some money in some capacity , which will change your life . So I guess for me , the inflection point is post that . That's when you are now ready to become an entrepreneur as a creator , because now you kind of have realized what has happened .

I am now famous , I have followers , I actually have lots of people that trust me , believe me , look at me and have this audience and I'm okay with this . Now , yes , okay , I made $20,000 , $50,000 . Wow , okay , I actually don't need to do a job or don't need to go to university . This is actually going to be my career now , okay .

And to be honest , that's the moment where it's like okay , you're an entrepreneur now . That's probably the moment where I normally come in because we have the luxury of not really needing to work with anyone smaller anymore . And so it's like begins there to be like how shall we shape your business ?

And what I love about what I do because I get to work with people and strategize on how are we going to make money now and where do we begin ? So in June's example , it was we launched he creates all content about studying . So we launched a study guide , basically , and we've sold multiple six figures in a couple of months and absolutely success .

He drives about 200,000 people to his website a month insane traffic for free . And now we're coming up with a . There's going to be a second product which is more like a physical . Then it's going to be like a long form content based , you know , core space product .

So then we start to just map out the strategy and again , after doing this so many times , the level of execution and everything that I bring to the table then just helps snowball that person . So ultimately , yeah , so that's the journey between . It's just a mindset change .

It's the , it's someone accepting to themselves as a creator that , okay , I'm ready now to become a business person . I'm going to have to sit in meetings and I have to look at presentations . I'm going to start looking at contracts . I'm going to actually have to start , you know , working in some way .

It's normally after they've spent some money , bought a Chanel bag , if it's a girl , went to Bali , they've done that stuff and got out of the system . The first thing you would do when you get some money stuff . So basically , it's post . That is like where I like to operate .

, man , and in terms of how you operate , then , is it only on a rev share that you work with them ?

With that being said , though , yes , we have plenty of retainers , upfront fees and other forms of making revenue too , because some of the client businesses are large . We have hired dedicated teams for some companies . So you got to remember it's like we incubating a creative business and some of them are getting really big by themselves .

They have like a 10% team hired just for that business , so it just goes far beyond the standard of one service .

I guess I've been in business for a very long time , so , yeah , over the years the model has just improvised and grown , but I would safely say like 99% of creators are definitely on a percentage type deal with us , because that's why it interests me . We're not here to do some services and get paid monthly . Personally , like that's the worst type of thing .

That's my nightmare , which would be I do some work , I get paid for it . I do some work . I get paid for it , like it has to be , that I'm building something where the unthinkable can happen , like sell $5 million in a day . That's what drives me to be like okay . Those moments is what we chase as a team . I still remember I slept in the office .

We released Shreddy . It hit number one on the App Store globally . That feeling of like holy shit , that's our app that we made and it's sitting number one on the App Store , which , like only select few people in the world ever get to experience .

So , to be honest , me and my team , we chase those moments , basically because there's nothing like it's like winning the World Cup , but in business , and I think that's the feeling you chase . My main team's been with me for five years now . We've had so many of these moments .

If anyone listening that has a business , I would say that's what you need to really build culture . Like no book's going to tell you no values on the wall , no , how many times you take them out for lunch , dinner , buy some beer , like all that shit is going to make no difference to your culture .

You can have perks you give if you finish at two o'clock on a Friday . All that stuff is textbook stuff , which does not work . I've done it all . I paid for therapy sessions . I've done almost every type of perk you can imagine Free Apple Watches to free cinema tickets , to free this . Nothing builds culture like actually doing something useful together .

So , yeah , that's been my massive thing in my business . That's really led to , I guess , yeah , be successful .

Those numbers get pretty fucking crazy , though the way you're describing it . So if you're doing like 20% on Shreddy or whatever it is , that's what's getting you towards 100 million , right , or 200 million from here , these launches , these bigger events and as they grow on over time , correct ?

The agencies you can try and do as cheaply as possible to make their own money . The client is going to complain as much as possible to get the most value out of that deal . So it's a very tough place to be and I feel sorry for people under that business model . For us , from the very first call , it's like we can do this as partners .

We are , interests are aligned . It may cost me more money or it may cost me more this , but I'm willing to do the effort , I'm willing to put in the time with the team or money or even co-invest in stuff if the end result is going to be something big .

So there , I guess , is more risk attached to it , because you could do a lot of work and it has happened to us and you launch with a creator and they don't sell as well . But that's how we've kind of learned over time that , okay , tiktok is not as good as Instagram or YouTube . Someone big on TikTok is X .

So then we've learned lots of different ways to test it and why we keep developing , like the data side of the business to understand , because you still make mistakes , even to this day where you think everything is right about this creative , but still something wasn't right and it could be .

The product , could be this , could be that , but that's the risk attached to it . It's almost like 80 , 20 , right In this case of something's may fail still , which is okay .

And I really resonate with that , because even for myself , I started on a retainer base lot of stuff we did well in that instance , but then we moved into rev shares off the products of the companies and then , as well as on the sponsorships , and that's when , like , it actually gets a bit wild .

Right , because it's variable , but it's variable in the right way A lot of times . Right , because you're getting good creators or you're getting good brands and we work with , like Shopify , we work with a lot of big tech companies and basically bring them sponsorships .

So I think that's quite interesting because I'm learning through this , observing people like yourself and seeing how I can even get to the next level as someone who's a business owner versus just a creator . Right , I want to ask you get into the details of your operations .

So you said that you front a lot of the cash if you need to , as you building out like everything yourself and then looking at the oral a long term , if you're fronting the cash , how does that work from that perspective ?

The creator has to put in the money Because they then care about it . So the truth is , I did invest in lots in the early days and I realized the difference between people that put the money in and the don't , and the way they work , the work ethic , the way they care , how much they promote all that stuff .

Then a manager gets involved and a manager is going to be saying this and that because they've seen another opportunity . So we've kind of gone through it to understand that we shouldn't . If I do now , then I take equity . So I'm actually investing in the business as an investing partner , just like a normal VC would , but we also operate the business .

So that's what we set up Gemfler ventures and we've been investing in creators . I've just done two recently and they're all coming out soon . These are like bigger bets we're investing in to be like , okay , we could be this . But the truth is , like you know , prime happen right in front of me .

I know KSI Logans manager , and one of the reasons it didn't happen was because they were looking for an upfront fee , and we don't do that in our model . We never pay the creators to work with them . So Congo brands , who are the guys behind prime , they did it . They paid them seven figures and that's why they got the deal .

But seeing that from afar and being slightly close to them in other areas , it's been realized about what can be , how big it could get with the creator brand . Hence why we're now investing in the right opportunities and trying to build our version of a prime which I have equity in , because clearly that's the big play .

I want to build a crater brand and exit it , and I'm very soon enough . Hopefully we'll do that one day . So yeah , but overall , you know , creators invest their own money . We only invest if you think it's gonna be worth it from a different , like an exit potential . Otherwise I wouldn't .

But there's lots coming basically .

How to stay focused on is because it's so fun , like genuinely , I'm doing things I want to do with some really cool people , and what I mean by that is I've always back to my story . I've always was buying and selling the thing that was hot when I was a kid , so that was a PlayStation game or a movie . You're a certain thing or a certain phone .

When the flip phones first came , I was selling them , and Sony Ericsson , then the list , and that then the iPhones . So , whatever the thing is , I've always been very good at knowing this is the thing right now and we need to sell more of this thing . Chris Williamson , james Smith and myself we're launching a drink . It's called a new tonic .

It's a productivity drink . You're answering the exact thing that you just said . Because of how big the new tropic spaces , how big the productivity spaces and all the people that they know , it made complete sense to try to go down this thing and by kind of doing a combination brand Till , we have us and UK audiences , plus the operations that I have .

Again , I've invested in that for the exact same reason . So Is seeing the opportunity in the market and trying to place the right creator , brand , product , value proposition and trying to put it together to go for it , and ultimately , that's how I stay focused , because I am interested in that generally .

So then I'm in , the opportunity presents itself and it becomes very easy to stay focused on it . I'm not a type of person that needs to do things to stay focused , because the thing itself is keeping me focused is the point . So it doesn't matter what time I wake up Doesn't matter . Like all , I don't believe in any of that .

So there's no routine , there's no nothing . It's literally trying to do as much as a physically possibly can every single day and I just stay focused on that . So what's actually hard is Not getting distracted with the different things I'm doing to focus on the biggest opportunity or the thing that needs to be the most and stuff like that .

So because I deal with actual people and clients and high caliber people , that's where it probably gets hard with . Someone wants you , someone wants to get on the call with you , but I'm gonna call it somebody else or whatever . So there's like physical things like that . But yeah , from a general work perspective , like yeah , I'm super focused .

So let's say , if it's like Instagram , or even how we're delivering content like , what are you and your team looking at for 2024 , all the way up to 20 , 30 maybe ? I ?

But I think for the first time it's seeming like to me that people are just watching people talk about lots of stuff For a long period of time and I think that's quite unique and I'm interested to delve into it because I wonder how much depth is with that audience and people , because it's like it's different , because the watch time audience to create it will

be so much that that should have its own unique advantage over somebody . So I think I'm quite interested in that .

I think People that chase the thing that's popular , as in like jumpy subtitles because they saw it here or there , I think those people will slowly , slowly just struggle because they're just focusing on the wrong stuff and not the value that you're saying .

You seen channels are post completely the different stuff to other people are posting , but still do well just because the value in this speaking .

So I think I think the bar to become a creator is definitely lower , but at the same time , I think we'll actually see that the smarter people will start to rise , which we're seeing already now from the creator space , because we're going from people that look the best , sound at the best , had the initial traction on social media because it's easy to like them .

She looks good like , he looks good like , or you know , oh , he's got money like , whatever , and I think the value always rises to the top almost in every industry , always . So I think that's what's naturally going to happen .

Hence why I'm more interested in someone who's more switched on and smart and understand stuff , versus someone who Looks the part or talks the part or has something . So I think that that's kind of like my thinking . To be honest , overall I'm not a long thinker . I honestly can't tell you what I'm doing . Past March I'm very narrow focused person .

I sold what's in front of me this whole . So many people asking what's your five year plan . I'm like I have no idea . I've seen no idea .

I may sell the company , company might go bust or we might be ten times the size , but the whole vision , mood board , long-term planning , like I would never have known ten years ago that would be at this stage in my life . So it's pointless if I focus on solving this stuff Front of me , like .

So I'm very narrow-minded in that way on purpose , and I like it because then you just stop stressing about the what if ? Because you're not like thinking about it . So yeah , that's 100% .

I thought it was quite interesting how you mentioned with streaming , because there are a lot of people who are People like Sneakope , a few other people that get these huge like audiences that people listen for four hours or six hours right , not me that listens to these six hours but it's interesting to see how you can monetize those audiences and what type of

products that would suit them . So , shan , I want to say a massive thank you . Hopefully this is very helpful for creators , especially in the beginning , trying to see that part when you look at the big , big boys and how this came back around .

You know there's another discussion on our day for all on the business side of things , but I love your perspective on things and and to be honest , this is very even inspiring for myself to try push for more , make it better , make it more applicable and get to new users . So I want to say a massive thank you , sir , and I appreciate it .

Any small creator listening you have to be strategic with your content .

You can check out gem , flowcom , our clients and who you work with , and you can see that the people are at the top , who have the most thinking in place , literally speaking , and who then practice .

They work enough to get better at it from a delivery point of view , from how they speak , the editing point of view and as people who do it enough , the repetition , the practice , other ones that are winning and Don't look at other people .

I would add to that , if you're still struggling to be like I don't know what to do , I would go find five people that are closest to you and reverse engineer their strategy and look at how many times they upload . What did they do ?

It's interesting that they did this , did that , and you'll start to see patterns , that which are clearly working on social media . So right now , on YouTube , if your thumbnail says the word sorry , if your title says the word you , it gets way higher views than if it says like I or we or anything else .

So even looking at yours right now , I don't know like you've got the brutal truth about modern relationships . If it was the brutal truth about your relationship , that would be more applicable because it's speaking to you . So we're seeing literal titles doing that to do better .

So you have to be that Boring at it that you have a spreadsheet and you put the titles of your competitors and sit and be like , why did this one , this one if I take out that's a big Star .

You can take off the percentage increase for that person because that's a bigger person , but there'll still be real insight in that , because you can't learn everything by doing and that's the misconception that people are like all below my page . When I did this , this worked , so I'm just gonna keep . I'm gonna try again .

Right , and it's a very natural creator thing to get stuck into . Or when I post this much , or when I added this many hashtags , this one did better , so I'm gonna do this one again in the exact same way . It's like but do the same exercise On the market and then you'll start to see that all , but it's also these 17 other things .

I need to try one of those next time instead of trying to hyper , you know , do mine again and again . So it's the inner workings of itch . I mean that's why we actually just launched creator college . It's creator collegecom .

I haven't publicly fully launched it yet , but it's doing well in the background where we Set up education for micro creators to help them learn this stuff . So in that me and my team are literally taking you through all the things that I'm doing .

So in that me and my team are literally taking you through all the different things that we learn , there's a community and all that stuff , because we want to educate the next generation of creators and hopefully in that some will be grow massively that we can sign .

It's kind of playing the long game for myself , for the business , I should say , and is helping us Also practice some of the stuff that we learn with our creators even more so and put into education .

So , yeah , that's what I would say to anyone listening to this that wants to grow their channels , wants to grow the following Gotta really put the work in and it'll happen 100% .