How to Make it on YouTube in 2025 (Jack Conte Interview) | Edited Transcript

Colin and Samir speak with Patreon co-founder and CEO Jack Conte about the decline of follower-based distribution, discovery algorithms, durable creative careers, direct-to-fan businesses, community, AI tools, and Patreon's product challenges.

CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Preview and introduction

00:38 The death of the follower and the shift from subscribed feeds to algorithmic discovery

08:54 TikTok, Shorts, and the new discovery layer of the internet

15:27 Separating creative purpose from platform strategy

20:50 Patreon’s State of Create data on reach, burnout, and fan relationships

31:51 Endurance as an artist and creating for decades rather than individual hits

37:42 The creator economy matures beyond advertising and platform payouts

43:12 Membership competition across Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms

51:20 Direct-to-fan revenue, free memberships, commerce, and live events

1:01:02 The three rules of YouTube: earn the click, respect the time, and invite the next watch

1:12:39 Autotelic work and why intrinsic motivation sustains a creative career

1:21:33 A practical sequence for finding media-market fit and building a creator business

1:30:05 Hiring, repeatable formats, and the difference between an audience and a community

1:36:13 Creativity in an era of cheaper tools and generative AI

1:47:45 Patreon’s biggest product and perception problems

1:52:20 The shift from fan funding to a full direct-to-fan layer

1:53:18 Closing reflections on creativity, leadership, and recording the conversation

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Full video:

Colin and Samir speak with Patreon co-founder and CEO Jack Conte about the decline of follower-based distribution, discovery algorithms, durable creative careers, direct-to-fan businesses, community, AI tools, and Patreon’s product challenges.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00–02:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: You have said we might be witnessing the death of the follower. There’s a new discovery layer of the internet, and I think that has massive implications. Every time we hang out, I think it’s so bizarre that you’re like a tech CEO. The smartest people in the world are often wrong. Oh, it’s now more possible than ever, but maybe it’s not. I wish more creators knew that, and honestly, that’s one of the best opinions I’ve ever heard. I can’t have my creativity pay my bills, so what do we do? Name another business that doesn’t get to reach their customers. It doesn’t have to be that way. Like, it just doesn’t have to.

All right, Jack Conte, welcome back to the show.

Yo, thanks for having me.

Returning guest, returning guest.

Yeah, it’s been a couple of years.

It has been.

So, you have said that we might be witnessing the death of the follower. Can you explain that?

Yeah, the last three to four years on the internet have been very different than the previous years. To be as quick as I can about it: one of the main things that came out of this era of Web 2.0, the first wave of social media companies like Facebook in 2005, YouTube, Instagram, was this concept of the follower — where I would follow somebody, and then every time they publish something in the future, I would see it. So it’s like, as a fan, I’m signing up to vote for what I want to see more of in the future. That’s kind of how the internet was organized for many years. You can imagine different publishers and creators building followings, people talked about followers, and that’s kind of how it was mostly until TikTok came around.

[02:30–05:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: TikTok’s main innovation — I think the red herring is that it was vertical-first short-form video — that wasn’t the innovation, I mean, it was one of them, but the main one was this concept of the For You feed, which goes: “Forget about followers—what if we built you a feed you’re going to like more and spend more time on than the one you choose?” And it worked. People spent more time in that feed, traffic started siphoning off YouTube and Instagram onto TikTok, and all the legacy social media companies started freaking out, trying to figure out what to do about it. They all replicated this core concept: “Let’s build a feed for you instead of you choosing what’s in your feed.” The For You feed kind of became this new thing, and now people don’t really spend time in follower-based feeds anymore. It’s so hyper-focused on discovery that essentially, what’s happened in the last four years is YouTube built Shorts, Instagram built Reels, TikTok is doing For You, Twitter built an algorithmically curated feed called For You, and the net impact is you almost can’t reach your followers anymore. As a creator, you make a post, and maybe one to five percent of your followers see it.

I think that’s bad for creative people. It’s bad for creators because you can’t build a community or a business if you can’t reach the people who chose to follow you in the first place. A lot of creators are realizing, “Oh, this isn’t my audience. I thought I was building a following, building an audience, but I’m renting that audience from the social platforms. It’s not my audience, it’s their users.” As a creator, that’s a hard place to be, and that’s really transformed over the last four years to the point where the follower just isn’t a meaningful thing anymore on the internet.

I agree with you that that’s taking place, whether it’s short-form or long-form. We speak with very established YouTube creators who look at their analytics and tell us, “Hey, I’m still fighting for viewership here, but when I look at my number of returning viewers to new viewers, I’m actually just getting more new viewers and fewer returning viewers.” So I definitely see that happening for me too.

[05:00–07:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Though I wonder: is the death of the follower just a consequence of the maturation of the creator economy? The fact that there are way more creators than ever before, and maybe demand for content has stayed relatively stable, so the supply is being taken care of by a smaller group of people, making it harder to reach audiences?

100%. I think what’s generally happened is the platforms have realized novelty and discovery drive session time and watch time. If your metrics are session time and watch time, which are the metrics that drive ad revenue—the core business model for these platforms—then you drive ad revenue by over-rotating toward discovery. That’s what I think has happened.

But to be clear, I don’t think discovery is a bad thing. Discovery is great. There need to be discovery mechanisms—there are on Patreon, there need to be algorithms. I’m not anti-algorithm, not anti-discovery, not anti-new creators. All those things need to happen. It’s a matter of balance. It’s like, name another business that doesn’t get to reach their customers. That’s not how it works. That’s not right or fair.

And again, I’m preaching Patreon’s gospel here, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt, but as a creator, I want a place where I get a deterministic line of communication to my core fans. If I don’t have that place, I can’t build a recurring community or a recurring business. It’s not a matter of one or the other—it’s: do I have a place where I can reach those core fans, the most important members of my community and business, or is it so over-rotated toward discovery that I can’t reach them at all?

Okay, I have a couple thoughts here. One, as we’re talking, I’m starting to feel like, isn’t this what TV was when we were kids? Like essentially the platforms are the networks—they dictate what’s on our screens. Yeah, which is what we had: when you wanted to watch MTV, you didn’t have a choice about what was on—you just watched MTV, and they told you what was on.

[07:30–10:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: So is it actually just a really short period of time where independent creatives got to publish their work and reach people almost without obstruction? Are we talking about a very short amount of time that we had? And the second bit is, isn’t this almost reminiscent of a traditional model like greenlighting in Hollywood, where there are lots of steps to get your work seen or even have the opportunity to build fandom? We are lucky we caught that moment where we could upload stuff and it was all experimental.

Yeah, I mean, if you think about it—if you guys ever do this—my band Pomplamoose started publishing in 2008, Scary Pockets started publishing in 2017, my personal solo channel on YouTube started in 2007. I think back to those times, and it felt so easy back then. The bar was so much lower, the stakes were lower. There also weren’t that many people doing what you were doing. You totally found out about YouTube and were like, “Oh, I can upload here.”

Here’s the thing—I hear what you’re saying about there being a kind of magic moment in human history when we had this chance and now it’s done, but I don’t think that’s true. Here’s why: if you just think about creator demand—just like free market stuff—creators want to be able to reach their communities and build businesses with strong communities. That is a huge need, and there is a lot of demand for it. The internet will catch up to it. I think we’re in a pendulum-swinging moment.

I struggled with the title of this talk because “death” feels so final. I think a more true descriptor would be “the dip of the follower,” but that’s less catchy. Also, two things are happening right now: first, short-form content is driving more algorithmic discovery; second, extremely long-form content is filtering for familiarity and followership. Podcasting is probably at its all-time high in cultural relevance and impact, but also saturation. When I open Spotify to listen to a new podcast, the chances I’m going to listen to a brand new show are almost zero. I’m almost always going to a show I’m already familiar with, that I’ve been following for years.

[10:00–12:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: The same thing is happening on YouTube: as content gets longer, if I’m going to commit to an hour-long piece, I want to be familiar with those creators. Totally. One way to think about this is: there’s a new top-of-funnel. We used to think top-of-funnel was YouTube, but now there’s a layer on top of that. TikTok somehow moved up, so there’s a new discovery layer of the internet. That has massive implications for what it means to be a creator in 2024 versus 2019 or 2020. Because if you don’t take advantage of that discovery layer, you’re probably losing out on a lot of audience and business opportunities. That’s where people are—like going through bins at Amoeba Records.

It’s interesting, because short-form is the top of funnel—but it also forces you to figure out what makes you unique and stand out from the sea of content that’s similar to yours. I keep harping on this, but I think competitiveness is also happening. The platforms change based on what’s good for their business, but on TikTok, if you’re into gardening content, on any given day you may watch a gardening TikTok, and there might be 10,000 videos just like it that would satisfy you. That’s a problem, too—that there are thousands making similar content, all looking to build the same community.

We’ve talked about this before—actually not sure if we did on the show, but definitely elsewhere—one of my frustrations with TikTok’s way of working is that it isn’t about the creator. The atomic unit of the platform is not the creator, it’s a nugget of 30 seconds of entertainment. So in a sense, it commoditizes the creator—meaning, the producer of the content is kind of irrelevant. Any one of those 30,000 things could satisfy the short-term need to be entertained.

By the way, it probably sounds like I’m crapping on short-form content. I’m not—I think it’s very valuable and has some great things for creators. Pomplamoose has taken advantage of short-form. I probably watch more Jack Conte short-form vertical video now than long-form because of your cool animations. I really enjoy those. And most people do—our research shows more people see short-form than long-form now; people spend more time on short-form than long-form.

The strange thing is people are less likely to pay for short-form than long-form. They don’t value short-form as much as long-form, but their hours are being driven toward short-form. There’s a tension as a creator between discovery and business, and that tension will always exist.

[12:30–15:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: There’s something strange about this business-model dichotomy we’re seeing now, where what drives the short-form ecosystem is ad revenue, which is a time-spent metric, and that makes sense. People like it, so they spend more time on short-form. But if you ask people what they actually value in their hearts, and look at what they pay for, it’s longer-form, more meaningful media. We talk about a very anecdotal, qualitative metric: memorable views versus forgettable views. At the end of the day, what did you remember?

I actually think that’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. One of the things I want to talk about today is: as a creator now, what are your metrics of success, or do you even use metrics of success? Because there’s an argument that creators shouldn’t worry so much about metrics. But some metrics that feel more relevant now—used to be follower count or subscriber count. I don’t want to say that’s meaningless but it just doesn’t matter as much. It’s kind of a vanity metric—a cumulative score that builds over time and isn’t indicative of nuanced connection. It still matters in the context of topline advertising—when someone looks at you—but I don’t know how long that will last. It tells a story.

Let me push back on that, because I’m talking about brand deals and sponsorships, not platform revenue. Even for brand deals and sponsorships, a more relevant metric is something like v30 (viewers that watch 30 seconds).

Oh, I agree. It’s more relevant. I’m not saying that’s the most relevant metric, but it still plays a role upfront.

Like, if Colin and Samir have the same average viewership but five million subscribers, we’re having a different conversation than creators who have, say, 130,000 subscribers with the same viewership. Subscription count does change sponsorship rates because new creators have negotiating power in a different context.

Yeah, 100%. And yeah, what you’re pointing out is true. It’s wrong to think about these things in a binary way: that it either matters or it doesn’t. There’s a second question: What should I use to gauge my own success? What do I optimize for?

When I think back to YouTube 10 years ago and what I was doing—there’s a path that optimizes around follower counts, and I don’t want to say that that—

[15:00–17:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: The typical path does work—it works well, and it can work for a lot of people. Views are available, and the opportunities are available. But there’s more that truly matters beyond just that. When you consider the internet and the fact that we’ve had about 20 years of creators and media online, looking at the creators who have been around a long time and navigated various waves of technological changes, you notice a certain spirit and heart to much of their work that has persisted. I’m not saying they never chased metrics—because we all do that to some extent—but even you guys make important stuff that is memorable and meaningful, and you can’t measure that with subscriber counts. It’s important to keep that top of mind as a creator because it’s very easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole of optimizing against a single metric.

There are two things that are distinctly different but often misconstrued as the same: strategy and creativity. When Tommy came on our show years ago, he said, “YouTube is a video game.” I stepped back and realized he was right—this is a game. People who are really good at game theory, like some of the top creators who grew up playing video games, understand: “Oh, these are levels, and if this, then that.” Let me just say, game theorists like Matt Pat and Stephanie are some of the best. Even when you talk to MrBeast or Ludwig, you realize these guys are very familiar with game strategy and understand how this landscape works.

Creativity, to me, is a different thing. Strategy and creativity can mix because, at a high level, a lot of creativity is problem-solving. But we’ve jammed them together into one word: “being a creator,” which is inaccurate.

[17:30–20:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: That’s such a good point. When I think about it, I grew up playing in a band, and I think about when we used to write songs. That’s so different from coming up with a title and thumbnail for YouTube. Writing a song is a very creative act that you can’t really explain sometimes. Sometimes it would start with me playing a small riff on my guitar, my best friend Mike would play drums, and I’d think, “That sounds cool.” Then the bassist would add something, someone would write lyrics, and suddenly all these things happen organically that you just can’t explain.

I also think we don’t talk enough about the fact that taste itself is a long-term strategy. Creators often ask us, “Should I optimize or should I not?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. I think you should go with what you like.” We don’t always do this—we wish we did, and we’re getting better at it over time—but choosing what you like might get you fewer people at first, and that’s painful because it filters the people who truly like what you’re doing. That’s a long-term strategy.

It’s hard because it’s a game of comparison. What makes that harder is that algorithmically, even if you make what you like, you will face a lot of volatility. If you stick to your guns with taste and say, “I’m going to ride this out and just make what I want and build the community,” you still have to deal with the fact that the algorithm won’t reach the right people every time. That’s why it’s so important—and again, we’re getting into what you do about it—that playing the long game is crucial for creators.

[20:00–22:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Every video is a swing. Some swings hit, some don’t. What I like to think about is the decade-long portfolio of my swings—does that compound into something I’m proud of, excited about, and that motivates me? Those are the things I would lean more toward if I were starting again in 2024. Actually, 2025 too. Being a creator is a long game; it takes a long time to build something valuable and meaningful to people. The internet itself goes through phases, and if you have that “amor”—that love for what you’re doing—it fits with your soul.

I’m not just being woo-woo here. People say, “Do what you love,” “Follow your passion,” but that’s not quite what I mean. What I mean is following your sense of taste as a strategy and staying true to the soul inside you. That gives you longevity because you want to keep taking more swings, and it lets you operate over a decade, which increases your chances of success as a creator. The only catch is that you can’t build a big business to do this. That’s my honest opinion—I don’t think you can hire a bunch of employees, get a studio, and so on, because now you’re living in a different world.

But this is what I’m talking about. I want to get to your report because you talked about the research you guys did.

Yeah, by the way, I asked our team, “Can someone print me this data report?” It was 280 pages. We did a huge report. I’m going to need you to help summarize it because I didn’t read all 280 pages. But one statistic stuck with me: over 78% of creators feel algorithms dictate their creative decisions. I think that’s very true. For us, we can have an awesome idea, but then we have to think about if there’s a viable title and thumbnail. If the answer is no, that idea is basically dead in the water.

[22:30–25:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: That’s what it takes to pay the rent here. You have a creative impulse and say, “I’d love to make that,” but then you look at your balance sheet and your P&L and realize, “We can’t make that.” That’s the dilemma around longevity.

I’m asking myself: how long can I not make the thing I’m excited about? One of my most creative friends, who made amazing concert visuals and is one of the most creative people I know, left monetizing his creativity and took a job inputting data into spreadsheets just so he could be creative later. He said, “I can’t have my creativity pay my bills.”

That’s the burnout conversation in the long term. When I look at our career, I think about how long creativity can be responsible for my bills and my employees—that’s strategy.

This is really the crux of it. If you zoom way out, there will always be tension between artistry and business. I believe it’s possible—and we have data to show this—to build systems that better balance toward artistry. Right now, my sense is that the way these apps are constructed, the metrics they emphasize, and the layouts of these platforms create unnecessary tension for creators. It’s not even just about algorithms. I’m not anti-algorithm. Patreon itself uses algorithms that send millions of dollars every year to creators. They’ve had them for years. We just launched Explore and Discovery features, including a little module in our feed that recommends creators. There are good versions of these technologies that benefit creators.

But there are also versions that push people to make content they don’t want to make. Over 80% of creators currently talk about burnout, and that stems from feeling like they have to create for the algorithm instead of themselves. Then, years later, when they look back at their catalog, they feel less proud of it and pressured to do things outside their passion, which leads to burnout.

[25:00–27:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: My argument is that it doesn’t have to be that way; it just doesn’t. Is this the symptom of making it—or feeling like you’re “making it”—being closer than ever? The fact that you see people doing things that work, and if you are creative, you think, “I could make it as an artist”? Before platforms and algorithms, it was very clear: if you wanted to get into Hollywood or the music business, you were pretty much out of your mind. You’d play clubs with no one in them, and you’d understand it was very hard.

Even for me, the moment I saw a YouTube video and decided to put my music online, it was a moment that showed it was now more possible than ever. But maybe it’s actually similar to before platforms—or not as possible as it feels. Wait—sorry—I realized when I talk about this stuff, I sometimes sound doom and gloom, but I’m just playing devil’s advocate. Our show is pro-creator. You can—it’s literally the best day in human history to be a creative person, and tomorrow will be even better. That trend is going to continue for a very long time, and that’s what I believe with all my heart.

Compare being a creative person now to 20, 40, or 100 years ago. Creative tools have become cheaper and more ubiquitous. Think about how much it cost to make a record 50 years ago—or a movie back then—versus now. Today, you can order a microphone on Amazon and have it at your doorstep in a day. Creative tools are cheaper and more accessible than ever. People are more connected, and it’s easier to find an audience than ever before in human history.

The economics of creativity are changing dramatically, too. The direct-to-fan market, the creator economy, is a massive business—over $150 billion, I think closer to $174 billion. That’s just a slice of the overall $290 billion creator economy market, which includes ads, brand deals, sponsorships, and more—and none of that existed 20 or 30 years ago, especially not available to a 12-year-old somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Hands down, now is the best time ever to be a creator.

[27:30–30:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: I want the internet to be better for creators, though—that’s what it comes down to. I don’t want to sound cynical, but I’m a creative who got into this world because I wanted to make it work both as expression and business. When I was young, that was my dream: I wanted it to be music.

Does it feel like you’ve achieved that? Yes, it does—but when I look around now, I just want young creatives to understand the reality of this world. The most creative people I know would make the worst creator business owners, and that’s sad. I believe there’s a different way to monetize if you are truly creative.

I think entrepreneurship has entered our space: the biggest creators are also media makers. Media making is different than creativity. We have to consider a spectrum—from the most creative human being to someone thinking, “Let’s just make another Spider-Man because that’ll put butts in seats.” We call that the artist-to-distributor spectrum. A programming executive knows what the audience wants next, while an artist doesn’t care. You have to understand where you lie on this spectrum because it dictates how you build your business.

If you’re all the way on the artist side, then maybe it’s just you and a helper, and you’re more fan-funded, which is great. If you’re on the distributor side, you hire a hundred people, create multiple formats, build a media company like Jubilee with tons of shows. It just depends.

Everyone needs definitions to understand themselves because I didn’t understand myself when I started. One way to think about this—and we’ve seen it—is that among hundreds of thousands of creators building businesses on Patreon, there are roughly three broad creator profiles.

First, there are creators who don’t want to think about money or business—they just want to make beautiful films, play guitar, or focus on craft. Second, there are very outcome-oriented creators who care about metrics and moving the numbers for their business. They’re super goal-driven and focused on results. Then there’s a middle creator, which to be honest, I think I am part of. I love making things, telling stories, and creating, and I—

[30:00–32:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Like writing music, I like making videos, all that stuff. I also really enjoy the business of it. I really enjoy building businesses. Pomp has figured out how to be profitable over the last 20 years, and that we’ve been able to hire a team—I really enjoy that. Pomp has figured out how to build a live business and how to build a membership business, and I get excited about it because it feels revolutionary. It feels like history—when you’re paving a new path as a creator for your business, it is probably the first time in history. Especially when you were starting, and when we were starting like 10 plus years ago, everything we did felt like, “Oh my gosh, we were one of the first people to make this type of business work for this type of content.” And it just felt like, “Is everyone seeing this? Yes?” You know, like, is everyone seeing what’s happening? One of the most frequent comments that we get on any P video is, “They’re able to like make records because he’s the CEO of Patreon.” And I always want to say to these people, “No, Pomp is a separate entity and it’s a profitable thing, and we’ve figured out a business model that actually works.” And I think it’s because I want people to see that it is possible—working when we were selling soap, yes, USB drives with our music. Yeah, I really want people to know that.

I love this, and I just want to relate on this thing because I can’t believe how many times you did this, but in your “Death of a Follower” talk, there’s all these images of you playing music to empty bars and clubs. Yeah, I did that once at the Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park. Yeah, it was one of the most uncomfortable, painful experiences that I’ve ever endured. I think my three bandmates will remember it too. Our parents drove us there, and when the curtains opened, it was just them, right? And like you’re in the middle of your set, and you’re like, “Sh—, should I keep going or should we just end after one song?” But I bring that up because there’s this graph that is the Colin and Samir channel over the past eight years, and for five years it’s a flat line. Five years. This is viewership. This is viewership for five years. We made videos that, in the world of Internet relativity, nobody watched—like 500 to 2,500 views—for five years. That is playing to an empty club, especially because you don’t even have the feedback of the guy behind the bar being like, “That song was pretty good, man.” Right? That experience. So actually, the guy behind the bar when I was playing left was empty. This is too loud. But keep going.

[32:30–35:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: So I think I’m curious about the endurance for that in this era now. I’m so psyched to talk about that. Yeah, let’s talk about that, because that endurance—I think we had Marques talk about it—like, you really want to be a good YouTuber, you have to enjoy shooting hoops in the park by yourself. 100%, right? And creative people are so irrational. That is irrational behavior—to go five years in your late 20s and early 30s making stuff on the Internet that you’re getting no signals that it’s working. Okay, so I can’t believe this, but what you just shared—this is Pomp’s graph over the last 16 years. This is seven years of flat land for us. This right here was when we started this song-per-week thing that we did in 2018, which was sort of like chapter three of Pomp. I won’t get into these various chapters, but that was a thing that happened to work. Was that your first recurring format?

Yes, I mean, our story is pretty similar. That is like any creator watching right now—a format unlocks the world. That’s it. It’s consistency. The format is like a repeatable thing that you can do over and over, that like doubles every week. So I think in line with the move from platforms, from follower graph to interest graph—which means I think we defined this, but if we didn’t, it’s like: here’s what I follow versus here’s what I’m interested in, here’s what the algorithm is going to recommend to me. I think YouTube also moved, and actually all platforms moved, from your channel being kind of like a multiformat network to being just a show. Right? I think actually a good YouTube channel is a show. Everybody who is trying to develop—I also think an Instagram channel is a show, a TikTok channel is a show. You look at people like Adam FaZe in New York who’s building shows on TikTok. They have a show called “Boy Room,” which is essentially almost old MTV formats that are getting changed where this host goes into a boy’s room—it’s messy—and she remodels it. That’s a show.

[35:00–37:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: So I think that four formats are the key because of that, because session time matters. So if I can go from one episode of “Song Per Week” to another episode of “Song Per Week” to another, I’m spending a lot of time, and I’m giving a lot of signals to the recommendation algorithm that I will stay for this show. But it also may be the best way to build fandom.

Yeah, for sure as well. Right? Because like the moment we went week to week on this channel with interviews with creators or episodes where Samir and I are talking about creators, it was like, “Oh, I can depend on them. There’s dependability here every week.” And then we could start to see in the comments, “Okay, we actually are building a community. There are inside jokes.” I think one of the, obviously, one of the first people that made that clear to me was Casey Neistat, when I was like, “Yeah, consistency over time is a lever.” Like it’s a growth lever for a creator.

And I want to be careful about saying that, because there are also a bunch of creators that I deeply love who do not have a format and who are not beauty rules. Natalie Lyn doesn’t have a format. GAW does not have a format—they have a style. They have a serious dedication to style and taste. Bobby Fing—that’s their filter for do you want to continue to follow. I can close my eyes and imagine a GAWX video 100%. Style. Yeah, it’s style. But it’s not repeated every week at a certain time. Right? He puts—I mean I think there’s a difference between putting a boatload of effort into every bespoke piece of media that you create as its own snowflake and story, versus putting a bunch of effort into a repeatable process that is a single every week.

But you’re defining also the spectrum because I—I don’t know much about how he operates. I would assume he doesn’t have an office with seven employees.

No, he has a family and his dad holds the camera for him sometimes. His brother stands in for him while he shoots. You can do that. You can do that. “I’m not going to do a repeatable format. I’m not going to have consistency.” When you are an artist, man, because you can go two months without making something. Yeah, and it doesn’t matter. Yeah, if I didn’t get any ad revenue this month, who cares. Right? It’s all good. But as a business owner with recurring costs, it’s like, no, that really matters. So what do we do? What happens next?

[37:30–40:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Because there’s some studies that say the creator economy is growing—it’s going to be bigger and bigger and bigger. There was also a Bank of America study that said fewer and fewer people are putting “content creator” on their tax forms. And I think my prediction is that incredibly creative people who have solved storytelling on the internet, who like making YouTube videos or TikToks, they might become the next great creative employees in marketing departments, or they’ll use that skill set in that way. The independent creator operator either is going to capture way more of this—the lion’s share of how the creator economy is growing. Goldman Sachs says it’ll go to $400 billion by 2027. Yep. Like, I don’t know if the creator economy growing means more creators or more money to the top creators, and I’m curious what—yeah, tell me.

Okay, so I do have some thoughts around this. So first of all, yes, we largely agree over 400 billion by 2027, and I’m looking at our addressable market analysis right now. 2024 is around what is addressable market—meaning for any creator, the creator economy, like how much money is going to creators, how much money are creators earning right now and in the future. How do you classify a creator in this definition? I mean, is that a media company, too? Like, is Viacom a creator? YouTube?

No. So the way we think about it—there’s a number of things—but at the end of the day, it’s like are you managing a community online and producing recurring media and trying to build a business around that? And yeah, so we sort of segment it into two buckets. There’s one way to think about it as brands, ads, sponsorships—like anything where a company is basically paying you for eyeballs. That’s one piece of the creator economy. And the other is like your fans are paying you. That’s the consumer payments portion of the creator economy.

That portion—we believe—is around at least this year $178 billion of fan payments to creators in one form or another across all those categories. Does that include Shopify?

No, like if a creator like Amanda R. Lee, who has these incredible doodle journals, and she makes YouTube videos about journaling and sells journals?

Yes. Not all Shopify creators will be included or merchants or siphon. There’s a portion of them that are more like digital media creators, and that portion we would count in this analysis. Got it.

[40:00–42:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Okay, so that’s like Patreon, Kajabi, Gumroad, a lot of these platforms where people are paywalling content or creating memberships. So the categories of fan payments that we see are membership, which is around $28 billion, which is like, “I’m going to pay you for your media you’re producing, and you have bonus media available.” Like three of your episodes are free and one a month is behind a paywall, or the first 30 minutes of your episode is free and the next 30 minutes is behind a paywall if you want the full deep-dive conversation. There’s a bunch of different strategies now around freemium and premium segmentation that creators are doing. Media companies are also doing this. When you read like the Guardian now or Netflix—the Netflix ad-supported and everything is premium—there’s exactly almost everything.

The internet emerged as free, going back here, because the sort of tech companies that won the first version of the internet were like, “Information should be free.” And then they thought of art as like a subcategory of information for the first 10 years. And artists were like, “No, that doesn’t work for us. We need to be paid for our work.” And media companies need to be paid for their work too. And so I think what we’re seeing now is like chapter one was, “Everything is free.” Chapter two is like people are getting used to paying for stuff online. Actually when we ask fans now, “Would you pay a creator that you love, that you’re a fan of?” I think it’s something like over 80% of fans say they would pay their favorite creator. And then something like over 70% of fans, somewhere around there, say they would pay one of the creators they follow.

Consumer payments have sort of been, yeah, I want to say, essentially normalized over the last 10 years on the internet. But the big categories are paid membership at like $28 billion. Digital commerce is another big category—that’s like, I want to pay for wallpaper, or I’ll pay for an ebook, or I’ll pay for like a specific episode even if I’m not getting recurring streams, or I’ll pay for some type of extra information that I can get in a PDF or something like that—just to put a tangible example there. The Yard, I think, is a great example. Great. Those guys make an extra episode on Patreon. They have public numbers; they make $23,000 a month. Yep. That is no joke.

[42:30–45:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Obviously you don’t get fan funding without algorithmic discovery—they play the YouTube game really well, have a large dedicated die-hard fan base, and are able to now have fan funding at that scale. Right. The platforms have fan funding as well. So like, what is the relationship between YouTube and Patreon? Of course they support each other. Right, like in the case of The Yard, it’s good for them to have algorithmic discovery and fandom that then comes over to Patreon. Totally. How do you see that playing out when you have, like, potentially a Spotify going into more fan funding options, or YouTube continuing and maybe making their channel memberships a better offering?

The creators who are serious about building a membership business, we see them leaning away from those products. And I don’t want to pretend like they’re not competitors because they’re certainly trying to compete in that area. But I am not losing sleep over those products. Because what we find is if you’re really serious about building a subscription business or a commerce business or any sort of direct-to-consumer business, creators are skeptical of putting all their eggs in one basket. One of the things that we’ve seen happening recently is creators are starting to diversify channels of communication and diversify business lines to sort of deal with the ebbing and flowing of all the things that are happening in the world.

So one of the reasons that people are coming to Patreon and building business on Patreon is they trust that Patreon is going to be more stable through all that versus their income fluctuating up and down based on changes to distribution. Right. So yes, a lot of those companies are launching consumer payments offerings and subscriptions—Instagram has it, TikTok had it, Facebook has it, YouTube has it. But what we’re seeing is it works for a casual boost to your income. The serious creators that actually want to segment their offering into premium and super premium are really using some other service like Patreon to do that.

One thing that’s not talked about in that context is just culture. Like, I think you have to imagine the verbal call to action—“Subscribe to my Patreon”—is a culturally accepted term. Yeah, and I think that’s something that is not discussed. And I don’t know what it looks like to discuss a feature in a tech company because I really haven’t been a part of that, but if I was a part of that, I would do practice calls to action. Right? Like, “Subscribe to my channel membership” is not a culturally acceptable thing to say on YouTube. It’s just not something that creators say. So you have to now say, “How could we create a culturally acceptable term?” And Patreon has had years and years and years of brand building in that context. So I…

[45:00–47:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: I always try to think about the more anecdotal, qualitative cultural components here. For example, I would feel comfortable saying, “Subscribe to my YouTube channel,” but I probably wouldn’t yet feel comfortable saying something else, just because people are unfamiliar with it. Now, it’s almost like you can’t say it because it has become so commonly said, like “This video” and these are things culturally acceptable to say on YouTube. So, you just have to think about what is culturally acceptable or what would be cool culturally if we spent five years building it. That’s a big piece of it—it’s like, what are other creators doing and what’s kind of known in culture? Nowadays, a lot of YouTubers know what Patreon is; they know there’s going to be a membership, and they know it’s some type of exclusive media they can get access to.

Also, comedy podcasts have really led the charge in my opinion on the cultural acceptance of Patreon. Comedy is a type of content that can be racy and at odds with platforms—that builds a strong narrative. There’s also something about looping in perks like access to tickets and going to shows, which I think is a good thing and speaks to the probable future of fan funding too. We were talking about events before we started recording—that movement towards events fits right into this picture.

Podcasting has worked really well on Patreon partly because it is episodic in nature, which makes it easier to segment some portion as free and some portion as paid. It’s like, “I’m just making more episodes; I’m not relying on any one episode going viral.” So, you’re not putting a really valuable thing that could be your next 10-million-view episode behind a paywall. Also, the marginal cost of production is low; that’s the most important thing. It is overwhelming to say, “Double your output,” but it’s not if that means 30 minutes a week—exactly the same thing you’re already doing.

[47:30–50:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: From an audience definition standpoint and in terms of creation, you’re looking at it like, “This is actually the core. I should know exactly what they want to hear.” In the context of fan funding, does Twitch subscriptions fall into that, or no? Twitch is very specific to gaming, but yes, it is subscriptions and fan funding in a sense. I think about Kai—over the past 18 months, Kai has been one of the most culturally relevant people to emerge from the Internet. During his subathon, he crossed 350,000 Twitch subscribers. That is a fan funding form—it’s like taking out your credit card, but also a very socially acceptable one.

I don’t really think of it as fan funding. YouTube started their product called “Fan Funding” in 2014, and I get that, but I don’t think of it that way now. It’s funny hearing you guys say that because it’s different from how we talk about it inside our company. What we find is that fans want to pay for exclusive content and an exclusive community. I don’t even like saying “content” or “exclusive media” and “exclusive community,” but that’s really what fans want to pay for.

So, it’s less like, “Please support us” fan funding, which has crowdfund roots, and more like, “If you want our extra episode every month, you can get it.” That business model has kind of emerged as very successful on the platform. It is different than where Patreon started 10 years ago, which was more like fan funding in the spirit of “Support our journey.” That was a piece of culture back then and still is, but the podcasts you’re referring to that do well on Patreon are the ones offering real transactional value to fans who want to pay for that media because they love it and also want access to the exclusive community.

[50:00–52:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: The language shifted from “Support us on Patreon” to “Join our Patreon for X,” and we see both still happening. I’m just pointing out that there’s been a cultural evolution in the psychology of fan funding, what it means to creators and fans right now. Many fans are getting used to paying for exclusive media.

Doesn’t it feel reminiscent of when I was a kid, asking my mom to pay for the sports bundle on TV? The sheer amount of subscriptions we pay for now suggests there must be some level of correction, like there was during the TV era. That correction has already started.

We see that many creators’ superfans—maybe 50 to 70 percent—aren’t willing to pay with a subscription. They are superfans, buying merch, tickets, individual episodes, or wallpaper, but they won’t pay for a subscription. One of the things we’ve been thinking about is how to help creators build businesses with those fans who don’t want subscription-based access but are core fans who want to participate in the community. That’s why we launched free membership—which is essentially like a follow—and also commerce, which allows those fans to make one-time payments instead of subscriptions.

It’s important for creators to realize there’s not a single fan profile. Different fans are willing to pay for different things, so having a diversified business makes a lot of sense if you’re starting out in 2024. First, you should find media-market fit.

[52:30–55:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Let me show you some revenue distributions of a band, Scary Pockets, to illustrate this. I removed the Y-axis, but you can see here the revenue distribution. Live revenue is a big focus and a big business now; however, it’s low margin. We can’t build a live business if it depends on me going on tour, so we designed Scary Pockets to be less about me. A keyboard player goes on tour instead of me, and at the live shows, we explain why I’m not there—I started a company and now I’m working three jobs, so I can’t be on the tour. We make that story part of the show.

Is this representative of all of music? Is touring the number one revenue source for bands? No—not always. For example, here’s Pomplamoose’s revenue distribution. Live shows aren’t listed because Natalie doesn’t like playing live and has a full-time job. Pomplamoose has about 1.5 million monthly Spotify listeners, so streaming is the core of its business. Ad revenue and membership are the next two biggest chunks.

I want to illustrate that having a diversified revenue structure—because something will tank—is important. For example, in 2022 when the world shut down, Scary Pockets had little live revenue, but other streams kept the business afloat. Many creators build multiple revenue streams because the world is changing: technology and platforms change, so having multiple revenue streams helps create a robust business and sustain the ebbs and flows of the external environment.

[55:00–57:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: In the context of fan funding in particular, if you had 10,000 people paying on Patreon or a membership model at $5 a month, losing 10 percent of them is not a significant revenue hit. But losing 10 percent of your advertising revenue is significant and would dramatically change your business. That’s why I look at the future of building creator businesses as diversified across multiple unique streams, probably more so than other creators.

We have consulting and speaking as big parts of our business, so we’re very diversified. However, we’re not diversified against partnerships; we have huge partnerships, which are large revenue streams across almost every revenue source outside of YouTube ad revenue. I guess YouTube ad revenue is technically a partnership, but it’s the one where you don’t get on the phone with someone—it just shows up with little human interaction.

Partnerships have been really substantial for us. We recently launched a course on Kajabi—two cohorts at the beginning of this year. It was a very high-ticket course for a very specific group of people, and it was terrifying to ask our audience to pay money for something. We didn’t talk about it much on YouTube because it was so specific to professional creators looking to increase their advertising business by 10 percent and transform their business.

The big learning was the worst thing that could happen was messaging it to 100 percent of our audience, since it wasn’t applicable to everyone. It was such a niche offering.

Why would messaging it to the whole audience be bad? Because there would be backlash. Ninety-nine percent of the audience doesn’t do enough brand deals to take that course on.

[57:30–1:00:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: We have been diversifying not just revenue streams but channels of communication. I wish more creators knew that. For example, we now have 8,000 people on a waiting list for our course, but we only accepted 50 per cohort because we couldn’t handle delivering a quality experience to more than 50 people. That’s starting to become a significant business because people want to see tangible changes.

For example, a creator who took our course got a $200,000 brand deal afterward. Others have closed $60,000 and even $10,000 deals. That’s an insane ROI for us to help them get there. About 100 people have done the course, making it a six-figure business.

We’re starting to diversify communication channels and segment audiences: if your needs are here, can we get you over there? If your needs are somewhere else, can we get you in that group? You guys are obviously very sophisticated because you do this for a living—the dissection and analysis of creative businesses. We’re fortunate to have spoken to lots of people. That strategy was done because we spoke to Ali Abdaal about it.

What you guys clearly realize is that even for creators, it’s not just diversity of revenue lines and communication channels; it’s diversity of business across audience segments. Some of your audience has a very high willingness to pay; others have a low willingness to pay, so different offerings for those different audience portions are critical to consider.

Many courses cost $1,200 or $500, but 99 percent of fans don’t want to spend that. However, one or two percent want deeper insights and are willing to pay for them. Similar to us, through cohorts, we get to workshop together, which we believe we can support. And that was pretty much the approach.

[1:00:00–1:02:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: It’s terrifying because you don’t want to—well, we put a lot of measures in place like a 100% money-back guarantee at any point, no questions asked. Luckily, the thing worked and was valuable because we spent a year building it. But it is a scary thing to start to change the model of how you interact with your audience—unless you segment them, which is when it becomes much more comfortable. Now you go, “Oh, I know you’re interested in this,” and it’s just a relationship.

What we recognized is we believe there are three rules of YouTube—three definitive rules. The first—I think I know what you’re going to say, okay, but I’ll tell you the three and explain the third because it relates to this. The first is: if they don’t click, they don’t watch. That is the simplest rule of YouTube. It comes from lots of conversations with many creators; I think MrBeast has said it many times. If you don’t figure out how to build titles and thumbnails, no one’s watching your stuff.

The second rule is respect their time. When I click on that title and thumbnail, I have to show that I’m respecting your time with my storytelling to get you to the end of this video and tell you the story right. I have to earn your trust again after you click by showing I’m respectful of your time by telling a great story. You’re investing in us, and this video is an investment for you. I’m making sure you get a return on your investment.

The third is: do you want more stuff like this? This acts as a filter for your next video and for any business you build. It’s saying, what is the value of my content, and does this other thing I just made answer the question, “Do you want more stuff like this?” Like if you listen to one of our episodes and you want to build a platform or something like a Patreon, a membership, it can’t not answer that question. I’m asking you as an audience member, “Do you want more stuff like this?” If so, come over here.

[1:02:30–1:05:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: But you have to take a really hard look at what “stuff like this” means exactly. One thing we recognize is you can’t go from an audience member watching a free ad-supported piece of content to paying for a piece of content immediately. What we did was start going, “Okay, you finished this episode. We’re talking broadly about YouTube strategy. Do you want to join us for a live session where we go deeper, totally free, in exchange for your email?” Now you’re in that environment. We’ve gotten permission to go deeper with you via email. It’s recognizing what you are doing and how to follow the threads of the fan journey.

Even on your YouTube channel, the best YouTubers at the end of their video are actually doing a call to action to watch another video of theirs. They’re making a pitch for you: “Do you want more stuff like this? Then click this video.” Those are the three rules.

The last one, I think, is increasingly more important because if you do get the opportunity to build a fan base, you have to offer them stuff with the same thought. Build and earn the right to pitch them something that costs money. The worst salesman or worst ad is when you feel like you’ve been interrupted and just want to say, “Ah, stop! I don’t want that. I did not sign up for this.” So you need to massage your way or find the right way to communicate so you can ask.

There’s so much there to talk about.

Yeah, maybe the place I’d start is there’s a real danger to focusing only on number one—if they don’t click, they don’t watch—without including number two. The three rules have to go together. They have to be integrated.

I’d argue there are probably two ways to think about “if they don’t click, they don’t watch.” The first would be a hyper-compelling title and thumbnail that gets somebody to really want to click. The second way, which I’m increasingly thinking about more and more, is the body of your work and your audience’s trust in you to deliver something amazing and compelling.

For example, I don’t care what Natalie Lynn’s next title and thumbnail is—I’m watching the video, even if it’s a black screen. We’ve said before on this channel, Casey could upload a video with no title and a black screen, and it might actually be a pretty good thumbnail. Or whatever Chamberlain’s video is called—you totally caught me making soup, which is a ridiculous title and thumbnail but has four million views.

[1:05:00–1:07:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Or a creator like your mom, Ashley Alexander, incredible creator. You’re getting videos with titles like “NYC Update Number Two,” and hundreds of thousands of people are clicking on that. That familiarity is a way to get there—it just takes a long time, which is totally fine.

The reason we say that is because it’s a factual statement. If people, when given through recommendations a selection of content on the homepage or suggested content, don’t select your video to watch—and again, that could be because I have a five-year relationship with Marques Brownlee, and every time I eat lunch, I watch an MKBHD video—or it could be because it’s a brand-new video, like the example we use a lot with Veritasium: “Why are there 96 million black balls on this reservoir?” There is nothing better at telling the story of an information gap than that thumbnail. You’re filled to the brim with curiosity—you had no idea there were 96 million black balls on this reservoir, but now you have to know why.

Let me ask you a question: if you were thinking about what to do in 2025, there’s like “media-market fit” first, right? That’s step one: make something that resonates with people. Ideally, it has to resonate with yourself, too. If it doesn’t resonate with your heart, then you’re probably going to stop making it in a year or two. So find the triangle where it’s like you like this, the audience likes it too, and there’s that relationship. Maybe it’s not really a triangle; it’s just like, “I like it,” and the audience likes it.

We’ve done this together. You animated this, which is contet—what we’re looking for is the audience likes it, the creator likes it, and the platform likes it. You’ve already animated this, so we can just play that.

You did a great animation going around in circles for this when we did it, because I mentioned that I actually think all three of those—you’re juggling them at once and sometimes they go out of sync. Yes, you might not like it, but your audience and the platform like it.

Yes, and it’s hard to maintain that balance, but find media-market fit. If I were doing that now, I would do it on shorts because shorts are where people are, and it’s the easiest way to break in—the easiest path from idea to publish.

[1:07:30–1:10:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: I actually think losing that excitement is a scary thing. We were talking to Issa Harris, who was talking about the danger of batch production. Was it somebody else who said this? Maybe something we’ve been talking about with a lot of people. Batch production is great in the context of efficiency, but in the context of creative excitement, it might not be great. When you’re sitting on a video for two months, you have a different relationship with it.

Anyway, take this episode as an example. The best version of this episode for us, for the audience, and probably for you is that it comes out the day after we record. That’s not going to be the case. There’s another element: the best version of this conversation is when it’s the first and only conversation of the day—you’re not doing four of these back-to-back. When you batch, it can feel like a chore as opposed to, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to have this conversation.”

That’s a long-winded way of saying: shorts—I agree with you—are important because you can also get a lot of shots on target. You can feel yourself out, find your tone of voice, and stay excited about your work. You can find your content-market fit, your media-market fit, using shorts. You don’t have to make a title and thumbnail. I would argue that at the beginning, before you find media-market fit, the best strategy is no strategy. It’s speed of iteration—try a lot of things, see what you love, find your voice, find yourself, and see which aspects of yourself resonate with your audience. This is basically the first five years of our channel.

Yes, like me too. That’s how it worked.

So try a bunch of stuff. Once you have that on shorts, I think step two, if I’m thinking about how to do it as a creator in 2025, is you have to move beyond shorts. You don’t have to, but there are dangers if you don’t. It becomes harder to build a direct-to-fan community and a direct-to-fan business. There are creators who have figured this out, but because fans are less willing and likely to pay for short-form content, and because when you’re at the ultimate top layer of the internet you’re more subject to the whims of the platform in terms of the direction of traffic, it’s a more volatile environment to build a long-term sustainable business.

[1:10:00–1:12:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Versus finding a format like you guys have found, where you’ve got a repeatable long-form thing your audience enjoys every week, with long conversations that people listen to, building loyalty to you and the format—that’s a key step. If I were doing it as a creator, I would find my audience on shorts, then figure out after that how to build a long-form media format and a tighter community around that format. That would be step two.

I’d be curious if you agree with that.

Yeah, I very much agree. I think the transition is harder than just saying, “What’s a longer format?” It’s a major strategic change to reach a wider audience.

If you’re a short-form creator, you have to zoom out and ask, “What is my value proposition? Why do people follow me from a short-form perspective?”

Natalie Lynn RG is a great example of this—vulnerability and openness. That turns into a podcast of her alone in her car talking to the audience, super vulnerable, but just longer form than what she was doing in short form.

You have to follow the line of value proposition.

I also think one thing we don’t talk about enough is the Vine-to-long-form jump.

The original version of this—oh, you’re right, I hadn’t thought about that—is on YouTube.

To this day, the most popular creators on the internet are people who made Vines, and that was the ultimate top of funnel and the ultimate way to cut your teeth as an internet storyteller. You only get seven seconds, love them or hate them. The Paul brothers are some of the greatest marketers of our generation and understood the internet because they had so many shots on target with Vine and got really competitive with that, tweaking it.

When Doc emerged and created his longer-form version, I’ve heard him talk about how that was just a series of Vines. David Dobrik’s vlogs were recurring six seconds of action baked into a 30-second story over and over for 4 minutes and 20 seconds. It’s essentially a Vine compilation.

So this is a long-winded way of me pontificating on what you could do in long form, but I think you follow your value proposition—what you were offering in short form, why people were there, and how can you extend that.

I really think that’s a great way to think about it. This is how Pomplamoose has thought about it for a long time.

We initially thought, “What do people love about Pomplamoose?” If you go back to 2008, people liked the weird sounds, the cool guitar tones, the cool bass lines. We thought, “This is what makes Pomplamoose Pomplamoose.”

[1:12:30–1:15:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Then as we made more things on the internet, we realized there was a common thread that wasn’t those things—because at some point Pomplamoose stopped being just me and Natalie.

Actually, I’ll pull up a chart to show you exactly when Pomplamoose stopped being me and Natalie. Up until here, every Pomplamoose video, I was mixing everything, engineering everything, mastering everything. Natalie was singing; I was playing all the instruments except bass and voice, and Natalie was playing all the bass lines.

We thought Pomplamoose was just me and Natalie playing these cool things.

Right here was the first time we had other instrumentalists play—a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player. At first we thought, “Oh, that’s not Pomplamoose,” but we realized Pomplamoose is something else.

If you read the comments on Pomplamoose videos, people say things like, “Thank you, guys. After 20 years of my drums being in the attic, I just went up to my attic, took a cloth off my drums, brought them down into my living room, and played drums for the first time. Thank you, Pomplamoose.”

What we realized Pomplamoose was was watching the joy of creation and collaborative partnership in creativity between two people who were really excited about it—or not just two people, but a group of people who were really excited about it.

Pomplamoose was inspiration to make. That’s kind of how we started thinking about it after that. Less about “Pomplamoose is me and Natalie and our cool arrangements,” and more like Pomplamoose is something more fundamental.

We took it into this new format. Then, right here, we transitioned into shorts. This was the first time Pom started experimenting with shorts just a couple of years ago. We ended up filming these short-form videos of us in the studio arranging songs. It wasn’t the final output of the music; it was us going through the creative process of working together. It felt like you were in the studio with us.

That was the insight—the same insight when we transitioned to the format of a song per week with other musicians: Pom’s spirit really is inspiration to make stuff.

It happened right around when the Peter Jackson documentary came out on the Beatles, and people talked about how great that documentary was because you get to watch the Beatles making things. A lot of my creative friends said they couldn’t even get 10 minutes into that series without going to write a song because it was so inspiring.

So getting to your value proposition as a creator: what is it about my work that is resonating with people? Be as fundamental as you can.

[1:15:00–1:17:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: It’s hard to get to that value proposition immediately. It emerges over time. What value proposition would I commit to for the next 10, 15, or 20 years, even if I wasn’t getting paid? I think that’s really important. As much as we talk about transitioning from shorts to long-form or various strategies for 2025, as woo-woo as it might sound, the real question is: What would you do even if you weren’t making money? Because that’s the only way this truly works.

Samir and I think about this when we get a perfect score internally, like, “It’s all over—this is it—the ship is sinking.” Sometimes we get very fear-based. One moment this year really stuck with me—I stepped back and realized this ship fell apart in 2019. We basically quit, and I moved back home. But we still kept making videos about creators because we liked doing it and found it interesting. I had to reflect on that moment because now we have so much built around us—employees, infrastructure, everything is different. I realized, “You know what? I really like doing this, and I will do it in many different forms,” because I like doing it. I truly believe that is the only thing that matters.

This is why I started by saying it’s so important. It’s very easy to get sucked into optimizing for how the internet is set up right now. That’s tempting. But there’s a very long-term approach to it: How do I stay in the game for the next decade or two? Your creative career can be long. Although it feels short in the present, almost like the end of times if you don’t get a “10 out of 10,” your career can stretch for many years.

[1:17:30–1:20:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: There’s a wonderful creator named Adam Westbrook who made a 15-minute video essay about Van Gogh. It’s one of my favorite pieces on YouTube. Van Gogh lived in his parents’ basement for 11 years, painting every day. His teeth were falling out, and nobody saw his work except his brother, who didn’t even like the paintings very much. Van Gogh didn’t sell a single painting during all those years; no one really saw them except for him and his brother. He painted every day because he loved it—he enjoyed exploring color, texture, framing, and composition. It lit him up, so he kept going.

YouTubers are like that, too. You can tell they just love story-telling and making videos. They would do it whether their ad revenue is up or down. Adam Westbrook calls this an autotelic behavior—that’s the word. An autotelic behavior is something you do for the sheer joy of doing it, rather than for some expected reward. As a creator, it’s so important to find what’s autotelic for you—something you’d do in your parents’ basement for 11 years, whether people like it or not, whether or not anyone sees it. If you find that, and it works with an audience, you’re in an amazing place.

If I had one piece of advice to emerging creators right now, it would be: don’t sacrifice that part. That inner passion is essential to a long-term creative career.

You need to think of yourself as potentially the Bryan Cranston of content creation. Bryan Cranston wanted to be an actor desperately, but nothing really hit until he was in his 40s. Malcolm in the Middle was the first big hit, and then Breaking Bad transformed his career completely. I’m not saying if you haven’t “made it” yet, you have to wait 44 years—but the reality is, you’ve got to love what you do.

[1:20:00–1:22:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: It might sound woo-woo, but I don’t think it is. Some people say “follow your passion,” and I feel bad giving that advice because it’s so overused. It’s not about blindly following passion; it’s about being honest with yourself about what you love. Sometimes, it’s not even a choice—it’s involuntary. Often, creators don’t choose it; they have no choice but to express themselves.

We see this in troubled artists, who sometimes aren’t even happy about this fact—they just have to get their expression out.

At many speaking engagements or events, when someone asks Samir and me, Samir always asks the creator: “Do you like making those videos?” Without missing a beat, the answer is often “No, not really.” It’s unbelievable because people enjoy the results of making videos—they want fame, money, and status—but the creative act itself is very intangible and difficult to describe.

Making videos, creatively expressing yourself, is like writing a song or painting a picture—it’s a weird, bizarre thing that you can hardly explain. If you actually enjoy it, you’ll keep doing it for a long time, but many young creators say, “I don’t really like making videos; it’s hard.” They build teams to do the things they don’t like.

As I’ve gotten older, I’m less willing to do things I don’t like. I turned 40 this year, and my tolerance for not doing what I want has decreased. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing at 25, it only gets harder with time. If what you’re doing works, you’ll do more of it.

What I didn’t fully realize earlier, and have learned a few times, is: if what you’re doing works, you get the opportunity to do more of that thing. So, do you like that thing or not?

[1:22:30–1:25:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Especially if you’re trying to build a creator business in 2025, let’s recap some key points. Number one, media-market fit: leverage short-form traffic to find fit in a medium or a long form. Two, once you find fit in shorts, build that long-form format and find fit there, because the short-form ecosystem is too volatile and unpredictable.

Number three: build a tight community around your long-form format. I want to talk about what you guys are doing—events. I’m seeing more creators doing in-person events with fans.

We were both at Max Joseph’s film screening. Bo is renting movie theaters for screenings of his YouTube videos, hosting 1,500-person events. Patreon is doing this too—we just did an event for Shannon Beveridge where 150 fans showed up. We hung out and had a great time, and she did a live version of her podcast.

More creators seem to have this strong desire for real, human, in-person interaction and actual community building.

You guys have started doing things like “coffee with creators,” which fits perfectly with this trend across the industry. It also connects to what you said earlier about making something you’re passionate about—because that also creates community.

I think Seth Godin coined a phrase about this: when building a community, you’re looking for people like you. When we started doing “Coffee with Creators,” we sent invites through our newsletter to Publish Press—“Hey, if you’re in LA, come by.” We rent out a coffee shop, and 150 to 200 people show up. We do these community events where people get to know each other, then do a live Q&A, almost like a live podcast.

What you realize is that you genuinely enjoy hanging out with those people. It doesn’t feel hierarchical—like we’re on stage and you’re here just to watch us. Instead, these are people you enjoy hanging out with, and they enjoy each other, because they share a common interest.

[1:25:00–1:27:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: We always thought about our first YouTube business, Lacrosse Network, like every video upload was opening the doors to a convention hall for like-minded people to come in and engage. Our videos weren’t just about entertainment or information—they were permission to engage with each other.

But that becomes incredibly fragmented on YouTube because it lives only within a single video.

So, in a way, I think we’re basically the platforms now—we’re doing the interest graph thing—but in a really healthy, good way. Hopefully in a way that’s consistent and dependable, leaving you feeling good about your interest, because you’ve met some people in real life.

Also, meeting people in real life is fun and necessary to be human. We sometimes overanalyze this, but as humans, you need to interact with others, and it’s fun to interact with humans interested in the same things.

There’s a difference between audience building and community building. One isn’t better than the other; they aren’t hierarchical, and you can be either or mix the two.

There are creators on Patreon and YouTube who are amazing community builders, and others who succeed with audience relationships.

By “audience relationship,” I mean the kind you get at a concert: you go for the music, watch the musician, and then it ends. There’s no ongoing connection, no sense of belonging, no interaction with other like-minded people. It’s a one-way street—you consume what someone created. Many YouTubers do this really well, and it works great. “I make something for you, you enjoy it.”

That’s very different from, say, a vlog where the vloggers build community. The VlogBrothers, for example, refer to their audience as “nerd-fighters.” You identify as a nerd-fighter, hang out with other nerd-fighters at bars, and when something scary happens, John Green helps you make sense of it. You have shared values and a sense of belonging.

If someone’s wearing a nerd-fighter T-shirt or a “Don’t Forget to Be Awesome” tattoo, you instantly know what they’re about and know you could hang out with each other.

[1:27:30–1:30:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: We have seen this on a smaller scale with our Press Publish merch. When someone wears it, people reach out because they already know who that person is and what they stand for.

You guys are building a community, and I’m not saying one approach is better than the other—you can build successful businesses with either—but as a creator, it’s important to know what you’re actually building.

Some creators want to build a community; others want to build an audience. For some, especially highly private people, community doesn’t feel safe.

For example, my wife prefers being very private. She just wants to make her music and doesn’t want to interact or hang out with fans—she’s more introverted. It depends on what resonates with you and what you want to do as a creator.

So, did we get through all six? Sorry for the pause.

To recap: build a tight community around your long-form format. I emphasize long-form because it’s harder to build community around a short-form format—it’s harder to reach your audience.

Number five: I think it’s important as a creator right now to have diversified income streams. I have a direct-to-fan company called Patreon, so take my words with a grain of salt.

If I were building a creator business in 2025, I would have an ads business and a direct-to-fan business. I’d also start thinking about their differences and experimenting with various types of direct-to-fan businesses—not just memberships.

Membership isn’t right for all creators. If you’re not episodic media, don’t force-fit that model. Maybe you need a commerce business or courses, or live events, or pay-per-view. Comedy has seen amazing success with ticketed digital live events and specials.

This diversification is important because if the economy crashes and companies pull back their sales and marketing spends—as well as if platforms or media companies leave YouTube because of some content issues—you can’t rely on just one revenue source.

[1:30:00–1:32:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: When advertisers pull out of YouTube, ad revenue can drop significantly in a month, so as a creator, you want to be able to withstand that. You want to have a variety of income streams. Another reason it’s important to have both direct-to-fan business and diversified income is that fans want more from you. We often see between 5 to 10 percent of your fans—10 percent might be the upper bound—are core fans who love everything you do. They follow you across all socials, attend your shows, buy your merch and T-shirts; they want more from you. If you were calculating this for a YouTube channel, would you base it on returning viewers or average views? Would you say 10 percent of the average views per video represents your core fan pool, or how would you calculate that?

That’s actually how we model it. We use conversion rates based on views or followers or sometimes a combination of both. As you get more followers, conversion rates go down because you’re accumulating more casual fans. Early on, your content-market fit mostly attracts hardcore fans first. We use decreasing conversion rates as creators grow larger to estimate the proportion of fans willing to pay for more from that creator. Once you identify that, the natural next step is to start a direct-to-fan business. But that’s just the “what,” not the “how.” Each method needs its own approach, and it will be different for many creators.

[1:32:30–1:35:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: One important note about direct-to-fan businesses: sometimes it hasn’t worked for certain creators or has backfired. We’ve seen examples, especially in the last two years, where YouTubers face backlash asking fans to pay. It was also misguided for some short-form creators, like TikTokers, to launch memberships because that’s not the right value proposition or audience—fans generally don’t want to pay for short-form content.

Fans don’t want to pay for something that was previously free—they want more stuff in addition to what’s free. Once you have that figured out, scaling becomes a big step. For first-profile creators, you want to make your business sustainable, and this involves a whole art and science of hiring people, which is very tricky. That’s the last stage; bringing others on board. If you don’t love the work or don’t want to do it yourself, just hiring might not work. However, for many creators making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doing it all themselves, burnout is real. They don’t realize they can hire an admin to help run operations.

Like I would have no idea how to do that—without Samir, I would struggle with hiring people. At “Coffee with Creators,” a common question is, “How do I hire an editor?” One thing I ask, which comes from a conversation with Tim Ferriss, is: close your eyes and imagine having a conversation where you have to give someone a raise, and then a different one where you have to fire someone. Are you comfortable with those conversations? If not, hiring might not be your thing. It may sound black-and-white, but I want everyone to know the realities.

[1:35:00–1:37:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Being a creator can be amazing and fruitful, but it can also mean dealing with someone texting you in the morning asking what to do, and you just want to be left alone. It depends on what you want. A lot of creators probably shouldn’t hire because they don’t want to build an empire or grow fast. For many of those creators, hiring a ten-person team isn’t appealing. Some people just want to be completely independent. These things aren’t black and white, though. I’ve found it easier to work with people on specific projects—short-term, project-based contractor relationships—and from there, a few people stand out. You start giving more work to two or three and naturally grow a repeatable process. Then you can think about full-time roles.

The tricky part is the uncertainty—what if the internet changes and your views crash? I think we’re on the precipice of quite a bit of change in 2025. Sometimes I get concerned because Colin and I have been in rooms where we see a lot of emerging technology, but I believe we’re entering one of the most distinct eras of creativity.

[1:37:30–1:40:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: What I mean by that is it’s going to be one of the most self-reliant versions of creativity. In the past, I didn’t have certain technical skills—Colin especially when it comes to editing and design—but now, thanks to advancements in AI and platforms like Adobe, Canva, ChatGPT, you can do things in seconds that previously required collaboration with a whole team. For example, you can write five different script versions in 60 seconds, then pick your favorite. This self-reliance means that soon, you won’t need to hire someone for animation—you’ll just type it in. Think of the eyedropper tool in Photoshop that lets you sample any color instantly; the future holds a tool like that for every aspect of creation: color correction, character design, scriptwriting, visuals.

We’re approaching a Napster moment for creativity, where all content can be taken and remixed. That doesn’t mean taste isn’t important; people with skill and ability will still be able to use these tools uniquely and humanly. What’s coming is wild. As a tech CEO, you must have seen this stuff—it’s not just behind closed doors. Some things are, but a lot is public. Nobody really knows what’s coming next. People speculate about the future, but no one can predict it with certainty. The smartest people often get it wrong. It ultimately comes down to what you think and how you live your life.

[1:40:00–1:42:30]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: I’m incredibly impressed by AI technology specifically. When I discovered MidJourney, I felt like a kid discovering a camera for the first time—like playing with stop-motion animation. I was 38 but felt like I was ten years old, excited to create. I was designing synthesizers and recording studios in my imagination, mixing the feel of a Russian space station and 1970s writers, inventing keyboards the size of rooms. It was explosive for me. I kept asking, “What if Wes Anderson did this?” It’s beautiful.

These technologies are incredible and will change many fields over a long time. But in the short term, I think the change will be less than people expect because people love other people. There’s something about human connection. When I listen to Kendrick Lamar, it’s not just the music, but the experience of hearing another conscious human who has lived through serious hardship and pain. That feeling of connection is why I listen to him or Elliott Smith or Big Thief. The best art and work—even this podcast—are rooted in that human connection.

So, while the craftsmanship of creation will change, I believe humans will remain at the core of creation for far longer than most expect. It’s possible we might someday watch 100 percent AI-generated films, but that time isn’t near.

We started talking about hiring, but I’m not concerned about AI replacing creators in the short or mid-term because human stories are scarce and will always be valued. What will change is how things get made. Going back to the eyedropper tool analogy: accessibility is opening up to everyone. That’s exciting but scary, especially if your livelihood depends on what the tool used to do. You either adapt or get replaced by the tool.

[1:42:30–1:45:00]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: I also know many creative people are scared or angry about AI, and rightly so. Creators deserve to be paid for their work. Using creator content without paying is wrong and won’t be the future. The current lawsuits, like those between the New York Times and AI companies, echo past conflicts like YouTube versus Viacom—they’re just cycles. Creatives will be compensated properly for their work.

There are problems with AI, but it also enables kids who can’t manage a team, negotiate with Hollywood execs, or build budgets to make 90-minute movies with special effects, sci-fi, and more—something previously inaccessible to them. Soon, we’ll hear stories and see works from people who lacked the skills or budget to make that content before, and that’s exciting.

Look at how music has changed over the last 50 years. Engineers at Abbey Road Studios wore lab coats and managed complex technical equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, 10-year-old kids can make records of even better quality with accessible tools. This trend is accelerating and is exciting. Although it replaces some jobs, like old audio engineers, it also creates incredible opportunities for young talent to shine.

The emphasis will shift from execution to having a story to tell. It will be less about technical skill and more about quality of idea and narrative because execution is becoming easier as tools become more accessible, cheaper, and widely available. That’s good for creative people. I’m very optimistic about how this will play out for creators, despite the current challenges on the internet. As media continues shifting from offline to online, and beyond, I think artists will emerge in fundamentally different ways compared to the last 5,000 years of artistry.

[1:45:00–1:47:12]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: I think artists come out of this phase of the digitization of media with more control, more leverage, more options, more creative control. I think that’s fundamentally going to be a good thing for artists. We will always have the struggle—artists will always have the struggle of, like, do I make for the market or do I make for my heart? That struggle isn’t going to go away, but I’d rather have that struggle as an artist than have a media executive telling me that my song isn’t cool enough to be in their pipes and they won’t distribute it. I’d rather have to deal with my internal battle than be blocked by a person.

I think that’s the world largely that we’re entering now—that the struggle of being an artist is going to be an internal struggle that is available to all of us, should we choose that path, versus an external struggle. That’s funny. That’s a good point. Yeah, I like that. I actually feel very optimistic right now after being in this career for so many years, and a lot of what I’m trying to do now is look at 2025 and imagine myself in December, look at our channel, look at our work, and be like, am I proud of all of those visually? Am I excited about those? I feel more primed actually to do that now than ever in our career because of how much we know and also a little bit of confidence.

I think it is getting older, too, and being like, I don’t have much in me. I don’t have much time anymore for making fear-based decisions, you know? Like, I just don’t have as much of that in me.

That’s such a good question. I think about that all the time: Am I proud of what I made? Pride in your work, I think, is one of the most important metrics of success for yourself, and it crosses genres. Even at the company at Patreon, we talk about, like, one of our values is “build with craft.” Like, when you build something, are you proud of what you’ve built? Are you proud of what you’ve made? That’s such an important thing. Like, if you’re not proud of what you made, why are you making it?

[1:47:12–1:49:24]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: What are the biggest problems you’re facing as Patreon right now? The biggest… like, what are your hurdles you’re trying to overcome as a platform?

I think it’s the same as the problems that creators are having. It’s literally the same thing, which is that it’s harder and harder for creators to rally their audiences around their work. Like, if you make a post on TikTok now and you have an effective call to action—“go buy my merch” or “go buy my tickets to my show,” and the first 10 people who watch it go buy tickets because you’re a really good storyteller and your CTA is good—TikTok drains that post in their algorithm. They’re like, “Oh, people are bouncing off TikTok when they watch this post, so we’re going to push that to the bottom of the feed now, or we’re just going to wipe it from our distribution,” because you’re driving people away from the app. But that’s what creators need—creators need somebody to buy their merch.

That’s pushing us further into the aligned incentives with the platform, which is advertising, which is why… And that is the core of one of the problems that we’re trying to solve for creators. It’s one of the reasons we built free membership, which is: how do we help creators not be reliant on platforms to drive traffic for them? Because essentially, the platforms are failing on that responsibility. They’re not letting creators send people off the platform, but that makes sense for their incentive structure.

It does. You can’t really blame them. It’s not evil; it’s a function of how their business model works.

You may have known this—I did not know this—but Patreon has free membership. So essentially, we could upload our show at the same time, same cadence, to Patreon and start building a following there, and say, “You don’t have to pay for this,” because that’s free on YouTube too.

In the first year of that, creators got 30 million free members and doubled their communities on Patreon. It’s very… and again, I’m assuming the conversion from a free member to a paid member is there. There are hundreds of thousands of free members converting every month to paid members. They’re already in an environment where they understand, “Do you want more stuff like that?” And now we’re building dashboards that show creators, “Here’s your free-to-paid conversion.”

[1:49:24–1:51:36]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: You love a dashboard? You feel like you love a dashboard?

Of course I love a dashboard.

No, I know, but I just feel like, you love a dashboard.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what else to say about that. I just want to be careful with dashboards.

I’m not saying I don’t like them.

You got to be very specific about the metrics that you put there because they’re going to incentivize behavior.

I like that exactly. You have to be very thoughtful about dashboards because it can be Pavlovian in the wrong direction. You can train people to care about this.

Well, yeah, you’re informing them what they should care about, and that is such an important thing.

You should just have a dashboard that has a front-facing camera, like when you open your iPhone and it’s like, “Are you proud of yourself today?” You’re looking at yourself and you’re like, “Oh my God.” Then you click a button, yes or no.

That’s the best. That’s one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard. Actually surprised I don’t know about free memberships.

I am also surprised because I feel like we’ve been on calls with Tom about it.

Yeah, but the fact that I—I think I have heard it before, but the fact that I haven’t retained it feels like that’s also a problem.

Yeah, it’s like, whoa, that is huge because it’s so low risk, and I, again, don’t want to sound like, “We don’t have a Patreon.” One year ago we didn’t have one, but we’re always thinking about it.

Jesse makes a pitch every month for the fact that message isn’t clear. I think is a problem because it’s incredibly low risk.

I think a greater part of the challenge…

Well, maybe by the time this episode’s out, we’ll have a free one.

I mean, that’s right, because what’s the problem? What’s the problem? It’s a free version. It’s like—it’s free and it allows you to put stuff behind the free wall.

[1:51:36–1:53:48]

Colin and Samir / Jack Conte: Us over in that environment, that’s like, “Hey, you get the email address,” and the person gets the thing behind the free wall, which is like a—that’s a value exchange.

Yeah, I’ve never seen that create backlash for anybody.

So yeah, like part of the challenge though is that we actually are building a lot of stuff like that right now.

I think people think of Patreon like, “Okay, here’s the core challenge. This is it.” You called it fan funding.

Yeah, we don’t think about it like that at all. What you’re describing as, like, how come we don’t know about free membership—we’re trying to help people reimagine what it actually is. It’s not fan funding. We are helping you build your direct-to-fan infrastructure and business as a creator, which includes free, it includes commerce, it includes memberships, it includes ticketed live streaming—it’s your full direct-to-fan layer now.

There’s no… yeah, that is going to require a cultural shift and brand shift and like helping people understand what that actually means, but that’s probably the biggest shift.

Every time we hang out, I think it’s so bizarre that you’re, like, a tech CEO, you know? Like, I mean, just that—the sheer amount of responsibility that you probably have accumulated during the time that we’ve been talking…

You know what I mean? Like, I get anxious about that. I’m like, oh my God, I probably have, like—oh, I’m just about it too. So many things that I need to do right now, but I can’t imagine—there must be insane for you, like, that.

So yeah, yeah. Thanks for this time.

Yes, so thanks for letting that accumulate.

Thank you guys for having me come back on the show. It’s great.

It’s always great to talk.

It’s even better when we get to record it.

Hell yeah, actually.

Yeah, it’s not a requirement to record it. We can all—yeah. Thanks for hanging out.

Thank you guys for doing this.

Yeah, it’s like honestly I feel like, yeah, we were talking about this bit, like, I would have this conversation anyway. It would be a joy. And to be able to record it is an even bigger joy, so thank you.

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