POPULARITY
13 episodes with awesomenesstv
3 episodes with awesomenesstv
3 episodes with awesomenesstv
2 episodes with awesomenesstv
2 episodes with awesomenesstv
3 episodes with awesomenesstv
2 episodes with awesomenesstv
2 episodes with awesomenesstv
2 episodes with awesomenesstv
ParanormalNL welcomes Patti Negri Date: April 22nd, 2025 Segment: 24 Topic:Ghostly Gatherings with Patti Negri In this UPRN 107.7 FM New Orleans & 105.3FM Gulf Coast Paranormal NL Podcast Segment #24 Ghostly Gathering Special: Host Jen Nosworthy will be talking with Guest: Patti Negri from Hollywood, CA. Patti is a Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch". Patti is best known for her recurring role on the number one TV show (on Travel Channel and Discovery +) called Ghost Adventures (with Zak Bagans), and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL Overnight with Elton Castee. Patti is an international bestselling author of: “Old World Magick for the Modern World: Tips, Tricks & Techniques to Balance, Empower & Create A Life You Love”. Patti has a new book coming out from Lewellyn in 2025 called “Dollcraft” about Haunted Dolls, and magical poppets. Patti's work includes appearances on dozens of shows such as: Portals To Hell (with Jack Osbourne & Katrina Weidman), Master Chef (with Gordon Ramsay), WipeOut and America's Got Talent. She's appeared with Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. Patti has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular award-winning weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has a second weekly podcast, The Witch's Movie Coven. Patti is a founding partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and founding partner and Headmistress at UniversityMagickus.com (or magicku.org) an online spirituality and mysticism School. Follow all of Patti Negri's work & socials at https://linktr.ee/PattiNegri and https://www.pattinegri.com JV-Noseworthy, RN (Jen) Founder/Host of Paranormal NL (PNL) Podcast (iHeartRadio, Spotify, Amazon Music, PocketCasts, and YouTube. Also now on UPRN (United Public Radio Network) 107.7FM New Orleans and 105.3FM Gulf Coast Tuesdays at 5:00 pm EST). Founder/Team Lead BOG team. Boots On Ground (BOG) Paranormal Investigation team. Follow PNL Podcast & PNL BOG team on all their socials. https://linktr.ee/paranormalNLpodcast
Patti Negri, renowned Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch," is best known for her recurring role on Travel Channel and Discovery Plus's #1 show Ghost Adventures, as well as the top paranormal series on YouTube, TFIL Overnight with Elton Castee. An international bestselling author, Patti wrote Old World Magick for the Modern World: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques to Balance, Empower, & Create a Life You Love, and her upcoming book, Dollcraft, set to be released by Llewellyn in 2025, explores haunted dolls and magical poppets. Beyond television, Patti has made appearances on a variety of shows, including Portals to Hell, MasterChef, Wipeout, and America's Got Talent, while also collaborating with popular influencers and crossover talents such as Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning, and AwesomenessTV. Her work extends to magazine covers, contributions to over 20 books, and conducting séances for radio, film, and television, working with Hollywood legends like Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase, and Gregory Hines. Patti is also a prominent voice in the podcasting world, hosting the award-winning weekly show The Witching Hour and co-hosting The Witch's Movie Coven. She is a founding partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com, a streaming service dedicated to the paranormal, and serves as the founding partner and Headmistress of University Magickus (magicku.org), an online school specializing in spirituality and mysticism.
http://www.PattiNegri.com Patti Negri is the “Good Witch” and a Psychic-Medium best known for her recurring role on Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's no. 1 show Ghost Adventures and YouTube's no.1 paranormal show, Overnight. She is the international bestselling author of Old World Magick for the Modern World, the Vice President of Paraflixx.com, and Headmistress and Co-founder at UniversityMagickus.com. Her work includes appearances on dozens of shows, from Portals To Hell and Master Chef to WipeOut and America's Got Talent. Influencers, YouTubers, and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning, and AwesomenessTV have featured Patti's work. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over twenty books, and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV. Patti has worked with legends like Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase, and Gregory Hines. She recently launched her second weekly podcast, The Witch's Movie Coven, in conjunction with her popular weekly podcast, The Witching Hour. http://www.PattiNegri.com Judy Croon is Canada's Keynote Humorist, Tedx motivational speaker, comedian and stand-up coach at Second City. She has worked with many celebrities including; John Cleese, Jon Stewart, and Joan Rivers. Her specials have appeared on NBC, CBS, CTV and The Comedy Network. She is a co-author of ‘From the Stage to the Page: Life Lessons from Four Funny Ladies!” Judy draws from her standup performance and coaching experience to entertain, inform and inspire in her dynamic keynote entitled, ‘Relieving Work Related Stress with Humour'. Judy is the creator/host of ‘Laughlines' and ‘Stand Up For The Girls' which have both helped raise over $650,000 for breast cancer research. Website: https://www.JudyCroon.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudyCroonSays/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/judycroon/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judycroon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/judycroon
Spirit Switchboard Date: April 5th, 2024 Episode #50 Paranormal, High Strangeness Guest: Patti Negri - Psychic Medium & Good Witch Spirit Switchboard welcomes guest Patti Negri celebrity psychic medium and good witch. Join us in the chat as we discuss mediumship, what it means to be a good witch, boundaries, protection and more! Guest Bio: Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School. Guest links: Psychic Medium & Good Witch, www.pattinegri.com 323-461-0640 323-573-2102 patti@pattinegri.com www.pattinegri.com/ paraflixx.com/ magicku.org/ podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-witching-hour-with-patti-negri/id1510679547 Message from Kerrilynn: I want to hear from you! I want to hear about your ghost stories, paranormal adventures, and high-strangeness occurrences. I would also love your show suggestions to cover in the future. Email me at kerrilynn.shellhorn@gmail.com. If you enjoy the content on the channel, please support Spirit Switchboard by hitting like, subscribe, and share. My deepest gratitude to you all! A formal disclaimer: The opinions and information presented or expressed by guests on Spirit Switchboard are not necessarily those of the Host or the United Public Radio Network and its producers. As always Spirit Switchboard strives to hold space for open, respectful dialogue with show guests and listeners. Host Links: www.kerrilynnshellhorn.com https://www.instagram.com/theoriginalkerrilynnshellhorn/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/kerrilynn.shellhorn https://www.youtube.com/@kerrilynn-SpiritSwitchboard/streams
Spirit Switchboard Date: April 5th, 2024 Episode #50 Paranormal, High Strangeness Guest: Patti Negri - Psychic Medium & Good Witch Spirit Switchboard welcomes guest Patti Negri celebrity psychic medium and good witch. Join us in the chat as we discuss mediumship, what it means to be a good witch, boundaries, protection and more! Guest Bio: Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School. Guest links: Psychic Medium & Good Witch, www.pattinegri.com 323-461-0640 323-573-2102 patti@pattinegri.com www.pattinegri.com/ paraflixx.com/ magicku.org/ podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-witching-hour-with-patti-negri/id1510679547 Message from Kerrilynn: I want to hear from you! I want to hear about your ghost stories, paranormal adventures, and high-strangeness occurrences. I would also love your show suggestions to cover in the future. Email me at kerrilynn.shellhorn@gmail.com. If you enjoy the content on the channel, please support Spirit Switchboard by hitting like, subscribe, and share. My deepest gratitude to you all! A formal disclaimer: The opinions and information presented or expressed by guests on Spirit Switchboard are not necessarily those of the Host or the United Public Radio Network and its producers. As always Spirit Switchboard strives to hold space for open, respectful dialogue with show guests and listeners. Host Links: www.kerrilynnshellhorn.com https://www.instagram.com/theoriginalkerrilynnshellhorn/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/kerrilynn.shellhorn https://www.youtube.com/@kerrilynn-SpiritSwitchboard/streams
Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Negri has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Negri is partner and Vice President of paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School. She has been practicing natural magick her entire life. Her specialty is in adjusting energy and flow – in people, spaces, situations, most anything. She works organically by creating spells and rituals that arrange natural elements to the rhythms and cycles of the universe to bring about healing, change our lives for the better, and create balance. Patti is also honored to be President and Chief Examiner of the American Federation of Certified Psychics and Mediums. Website .pattinegri.com Book Old World Magick for the Modern World
Jason Hellerman is an award-winning film and TV writer. His feature screenplay, Shovel Buddies, made the top ten of the annual Black List and was purchased and produced by AwesomenessTV. Since then, he's completed feature film and television work for a variety of producers and directors. Currently, he's writing an action comedy for Sylvester Stallone's production company called My Masterpiece, which is set to star Academy Award-nominated actress Maria Bakalova. His latest spec, Himbo, appeared on the 2022 Black List. For more of his work, go to: https://nofilmschool.com/u/jasonhellerman Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we're giving away 100,000 copies this year. It's based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy! If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!
YouTube Slime Queen Karina Garcia teams up with writer Kevin Panetta and artist Niki Smith for a fun, colorful adventure featuring three friends, Bailey, Sophia, and Jayden, who run the BSJ slime shop. What the three slime makers don't know is that when they're not around, the slimes come to life! When the creators start shipping slimes off to who-knows-where, the slimes left at the shop start to worry that they're next. Even as Polly tries to convince her friends that everything is fine, Boris, a grumpy green slime, starts taking things into his own hands. Then slimes start disappearing and suddenly the shop is full of zombie slimes.With half the shop zombified and the other half scared silly, Polly has no choice but to go on a quest, along with her friends Max and Karma, to discover the truth about the slimes being shipped off and a way to save her friends before it's too late. Will they be able to turn everyone back into themselves? Or will the slime shop get shut down for good?Karina Garcia is the California-based Queen of Slime, expert on all things DIY and crafting. She has amassed over 15 million followers across social media and has written three bestselling books about slime and crafting. Karina also has extensive TV experience, most recently with AwesomenessTV's DIY Dash and her family's reality show, Going Garcia. Karina has been featured on Good Morning America, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Today Show as well as in the New York Times, Business Insider, and Forbes.
YouTube Slime Queen Karina Garcia teams up with writer Kevin Panetta and artist Niki Smith for a fun, colorful adventure featuring three friends, Bailey, Sophia, and Jayden, who run the BSJ slime shop. What the three slime makers don't know is that when they're not around, the slimes come to life! When the creators start shipping slimes off to who-knows-where, the slimes left at the shop start to worry that they're next. Even as Polly tries to convince her friends that everything is fine, Boris, a grumpy green slime, starts taking things into his own hands. Then slimes start disappearing and suddenly the shop is full of zombie slimes.With half the shop zombified and the other half scared silly, Polly has no choice but to go on a quest, along with her friends Max and Karma, to discover the truth about the slimes being shipped off and a way to save her friends before it's too late. Will they be able to turn everyone back into themselves? Or will the slime shop get shut down for good?Karina Garcia is the California-based Queen of Slime, expert on all things DIY and crafting. She has amassed over 15 million followers across social media and has written three bestselling books about slime and crafting. Karina also has extensive TV experience, most recently with AwesomenessTV's DIY Dash and her family's reality show, Going Garcia. Karina has been featured on Good Morning America, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and The Today Show as well as in the New York Times, Business Insider, and Forbes.
Paul Kelly is the chief revenue officer of A Million Ads, a leading firm specializing in dynamic audio ads for hundreds of brands, like Target, Under Armour and Ford. His role allows him to speak to brands daily and manage a new era of personalization in audio that is both privacy compliant yet still capable of meeting the individual customer's needs. Prior to A Million Ads, Paul shaped and actively scaled the commercial strategy for a number of high-growth digital companies including Viacom, AwesomenessTV, Watchmojo and GoldieBlox. His experiences gave him first-hand knowledge about brand activity outside above the line advertising, including advanced customer service and product development. In this episode, you will learn How has the rise of podcasting and streaming services influenced the growing importance of audio advertising in the ecommerce marketing world The concept of hyper-targeting in the context of audio ads and how it can lead to significant cost savings for businesses What sets audio ads apart from traditional advertising mediums when it comes to personalization and audience targeting Key elements that make an audio ad campaign successful and memorable for listeners Example of a brands that have seen significant success by leveraging hyper-targeted audio ads For show transcript and past guests, please visit https://www.ecommercemarketingpodcast.com Or on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3PgT0NOGzpdPGQtBK0XLIQ Follow Arlen: Twitter: https://twitter.com/askarlen Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arlen.robinson.7 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arlenyohance/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlenrobinson/ Past guests on the ecommerce marketing podcast include Neil Patel, Nemo Chu, Luke Lintz, Luke Carthy, Amber Armstrong, Kris Ruby and many more. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review.
1ooth Episode Special! We can't believe we made it to 100 episodes! We needed to celebrate this occasion with our special guest and friend, Hollywood's witch, Patti Negri! Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School.
Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and “Good Witch” is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, The Witch's Movie Coven. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at UniversityMagickus.com an online Spirituality School.
¡Bueno, LOL'eros! Get your party hats on because we have María Pérez aka María Fairy Godmother on Latinos Out Loud. She is an online Quinceañera planner who helps plan MAGICAL nights. In this episode, Rachel and María discuss My Dream Quinceañera, the coming-of-age reality series based on AwesomenessTV's most-viewed-ever YouTube series of the same name. You can stream the season finale on Paramount+ NOW!
This interview features Zach Blume, Co-Founder and President of Portal A. We discuss how he built a 360 monetization strategy for an early Internet video series, launching one of the first branded content studios with his childhood friends, creating one of the most well-known and longest-running digital formats in YouTube Rewind, how Portal A ended up selling a minority stake to Brett Montgomery's Wheelhouse, why feeling like outsiders is central to their identity, and what's up next for the Portal A team.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow us on LinkedIn: RockWater LinkedInEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.comInterview TranscriptThe interview was lightly edited for clarity.Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to the Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.Zach Blume:We built a business model around it that included merchandise, ad revenue share, ticketed events, and sponsorships. And so we actually ran that show at a profit, even though it was early internet video web series. And the idea was to build an entertainment property on the web that could become multi-season, could eventually travel to TV, which it did. It later became a TV series called White Collar Brawlers. It was super experimental, and I would say, looking back on a fairly innovative for three guys who had really no idea what we were doing and had no training in any of this, we built an entertainment property on the internet that was profitable.Chris Erwin:This week's episode featured Zach Blume, Co-Founder and President of Portal A. So Zach grew up in Berkeley and had a self-described normal suburban life of sports and friends. Zach then went to University of Oregon to study political science and pursued an early career running local political campaigns in California. But an opportune moment reunited Zach, with his two childhood friends to create one of the internet's earliest digital series White Collar Brawlers.After some unexpected success, the friend trio then became the founding team for Portal A, an award-winning digital and branded content company. Some highlights of our chat include his 360 monetization strategy for one of the earliest internet video brands, what it takes to co-found a successful company with your friends, how they landed a strategic investment from Wheelhouse, why feeling like an outsider is central to their identity, and how they're building towards the next massive creator opportunity. All right, let's get to it. Zach, thanks for being on the Come Up podcast.Zach Blume:It's a pleasure to be here.Chris Erwin:From our conversation yesterday, amazingly, I believe this is your first podcast interview ever. Is that right?Zach Blume:It's true. A lot of interviews over the years. Some predating the podcast era, some during the podcast era, but I'm honored to be invited onto yours. I've listened to a bunch of episodes, and we'll see how it goes.Chris Erwin:Awesome. All right, so as is typical, let's rewind a bit before we get into the whole Portal A story, although it actually starts pretty early on. So why don't you tell us about where you grew up and what your childhood was like?Zach Blume:Yeah, I grew up in Berkeley, California, the son of two die-hard New Yorkers who had moved out to California. My dad was born in the Bronx. My mom was from Manhattan. They were part of the New York exodus to California, and I was the first kid in my family who grew up in California and, of all places, Berkeley, childhood filled with lots of sports and playing in the street and all that good stuff. And the really interesting tie to the Portal A story, obviously, is that I met my two co-founders when we were somewhere between four and five years old. The stories differ, but we met in kindergarten, and we're close friends basically since we were little kids and played a lot of basketball together growing up. And the court that we played basketball in was called Portal A, which eventually became the name of our company 25 years later. The founder story of Portal A is very tied up in the childhood story of all for all three of us. I live in Oakland now, so I didn't stray too far from home.Chris Erwin:Got it. I remember in doing a little bit of research for this episode, I was trying to look up Portal A parks around the US, and I kept finding some in Orange County, so I thought you were an NorC kid, but No, you're a NorCal kid.Zach Blume:I mean, I think if there's an opposite of Orange County, it would probably be Berkeley.Chris Erwin:That's probably right.Zach Blume:But the court was actually an El Cerrito, which is an adjacent town to Berkeley, and it still exists. It's still around, and we should probably go play some hoops over there, but we haven't for years.Chris Erwin:Yeah, that'd be fun. So I have to ask, what did your parents do?Zach Blume:My dad has a business background. He runs and, up until actually six months ago, ran an investment advisory firm helping individuals manage their investments. It was a small company, five to six employees, just a great business, really community based, all about relationships and helping people manage their life and their money. And yeah, it's taught me a lot about business growing up, for sure.My mom was a therapist. She's retired now. She was a private practice in Berkeley. They've known each other since they were 20. They actually both went to the Wright Institute, which was a psychology graduate school in Berkeley. My dad was a psychologist briefly for about six months before he went back into business. And my mom was a therapist for 25 years. It was an interesting mix of business and psychology growing up, for sure.Chris Erwin:Got it. And were there any siblings?Zach Blume:No siblings? I'm the only one and-Chris Erwin:Oh, only child. Okay.Zach Blume:Yeah, interestingly, five of my closest friends, all groomsmen at my wedding, were from that same kindergarten class where I met Nate and Kai, my two co-founders. So there's definitely been a brotherly nature of those relationships. And at this point, I kind of consider Nate and Kai almost like brothers. We've known each other for 35 years, and we've been in business together for over 12 years, so it's pretty deep. Those relationships run pretty deep.Chris Erwin:Was there a part of you early on where you thought you might go into business and finance or become an investment manager like your father?Zach Blume:So there was also a lot of political kind of conversation and learning in my house. I remember from a very early age, my dad, when I was like eight, he would try to sit me down and read the Sunday Weekend Review in the New York Times. And it was like torture for me. But I think it got in there somewhere.In college, I actually studied political science and, for years, worked in the political world after I graduated from school. And I really thought that was my path, and it was for many years. I worked on campaigns. I started managing campaigns. I worked for political communication shop in San Francisco for years. I kind of burned out on the world of politics. I've since been re-engaged in a lot of different ways. But when I burned out on politics, that's when I thought I was going to go into business.I left the political world, was studying to go to business school, doing all the GMAT prep, and that's when Nate and Kai came to me and said, "We should make a web series together." Because I had a three-month gap, and it sounded so fun. We had made some stuff together just for fun earlier on. And so, while I was studying for the GMAT, I joined Nate and Kai to make this web series in the early days of internet video. And that's kind of the origin story of where we are today is that that web series, it was called White Collar Brawler. It was totally weird and crazy and awesome, and it started us on our journey to where we are today.Chris Erwin:Got it. So going back even a bit further, I'm just curious because you met your co-founders, Nate and Kai, back when you were in kindergarten, as you said, four to five years old, when you were in middle school, or when you in high school, were you guys part of the theater club? Were you creating any types of videos for your classes? There's something about meeting people early in your childhood, particularly in digital media, that I think blossoms into different relationships. So was there any kind of through line early on where you were interested in media entertainment before getting into PoliSci, which as part of your early career?Zach Blume:Yeah, I think there definitely was for Nate and Kai. There was less so for me. So Nate and Kai started making, maybe not in high school, but in their college years, they both went to school on the East Coast. This is like 2003, 2004, 2005. They started making internet, video, and web series when they were in college. And Kai was a film major, so he had some training, and they started just playing a lot of comedic stuff earliest day pre-YouTube, so quick time player-type stuff.So yeah, high school, I'm not so sure college for sure for them, at least it started building. And then, right after college, the three of us, plus another friend, grabbed a flight to Hanoi, bought motorcycles in Vietnam, and traveled across the country, and we made a web series called Huge In Asia.So it was like a 30-episode comedy travel web series, kind of just chronicling our journey across Vietnam. And then, they went on, I had to come back to the States for some work, but they went on to Mongolia, China, Laos, all sorts of different countries across Asia. That's where it really started for us the idea that you could not be in the formal, either entertainment industry or advertising industry. You could buy a pretty shitty camera, have an idea, start producing content and build an audience. And that was 2006. So the interest in internet video as a medium really started there.Then we all went our separate ways, and all did kind of normal early career professional stuff, but that Huge in Asia as an idea and an adventure was really the starting point for us. So yeah, so I would say the interest in video and film and just the distribution of it online started college years, and then the year after, we went to Asia.Chris Erwin:Got it. So just to add some context here, because I think YouTube was founded around 2004, and then it was bought by Google around '05, '06 pretty shortly after founding. So when you're coming out of college, I think this is around a 2006 timeframe, as you noted, when you guys decided to go to Asia and to do this motorcycle tour, was there a goal of, "Hey, there's an explosion in internet video, we have a chance to build an audience and make money off of this?" Or was it just, "Hey, this seems like a really fun thing to do. We're just coming out of college, we're kind of this in this exploratory phase, we like spending time with one another, let's go do this and see what happens." When you were thinking from the beginning, what was the end goal of that project?Zach Blume:Much more the latter. I mean, it was purely experimental. It was all about the adventure. I think there was a sense that we were at the dawn of something new, and I think that YouTube, Vimeo, I mean all the other platforms in the investment of history at this point, but there was an explosion of internet video technology that was enabling people like us to start making stuff. So I think there was like a sense that something was happening. It definitely was not a money-making endeavor. In fact, it was the opposite. And it was really just to experiment and play and see where it took us.Looking back on it, 15 years later, 18 years later, whatever it is, I think it's 100% served its purpose. We got our feet wet. We started experimenting. We started learning what worked, what didn't work, what audiences responded to, what made us happy. It kind of gelled our relationship as young adults versus as kids. And we never would've known at the time, but it did 100% lead to Portal A, and that's to where we are now.Chris Erwin:Okay, yeah, I hear you. I think, looking back in retrospect, it was definitely a catalyst to the forming of Portal A and where you got to where you are today, but it wasn't because when you came back from that trip, it wasn't like, "Oh, let's found Portal A and let's get going." You actually entered into the political realm for two to three years before founding Portal A, right?Zach Blume:Yep. That was always my plan, and that was the career I was going to pursue for sure.Chris Erwin:So, but the seed had been planted, but yeah, in '06, for the next two years, you become a political campaign manager. What campaigns were you working on?Zach Blume:First campaign was a Congressional campaign in Southern California. That was actually my first job out of college. We got trounced by 22 points in a very heavily Republican district by Mary Bono, who was Sonny Bono's widow. We had a candidate that we really liked, and it was the 2006 election, so it was kind of the midway point or the later stages of, I guess, Bush's first term. And there was a ground swell of just whenever there's a presidential election, two years later, the other party is the one that's like kind of getting their grassroots organizing on.So it was definitely an exciting time. It was an exciting election year. I happened to work on a campaign that was in a... It was Palm Springs. It was like that area, heavily Republican area, but I learned so much, and I was running a third of the district, and I loved it. I loved organizing. I felt like I was on the right side of history and doing the right thing.That then led to this fellowship that I did called The Coro Fellowship. I met one of my best friends on the campaign who had done the Coro Fellowship, and it was a year-long fellowship in political and public affairs. Everybody listening to this podcast will never have heard of Coro, but in the political and policy world, it's well-known and well-regarded, and that was a great experience. I got exposure across a bunch of different sectors, including government, labor unions, business, nonprofits, et cetera.Out of that, I started managing a campaign for the California State Assembly in Richmond, California, with a candidate, Tony Thurmond, who is now the Superintendent of Public Education in California. So he's gone on to do pretty big things. He's an amazing guy.And that led me to work at Storefront Political Media, which was a political media and communication shop in San Francisco that, at the time, ran all of Gavin Newsom's campaigns. He was then the mayor of San Francisco, obviously, is now the governor of California.I ran the mayor's race in Houston, of all places, elected Annise Parker, who was the first lesbian mayor of a major American city. And she was a fantastic executive out in Houston and then had a bunch of different clients, including firefighters unions, individual candidates. Ultimately, I was working for a client that was leading initiatives that didn't necessarily align with my own political values. And that was part of what led me to say I was ready to move on from the world of politics. So it was a fantastic experience, I learned so much, but that's what kind of prompted me to want to go to business school, which is what I was going to do until Nate and Kai came along and said, "Let's make a web series."Chris Erwin:Yeah. When you were working on these political campaigns and also working with Storefront Political Media, which is a national communication media and PR firm, were you bringing some of your grassroots internet video tactics to help build community, to help build influence and sway some of these elections? Was that part of kind of some of the unique flavor that you brought to these teams?Zach Blume:For sure, I was definitely the internet guy at that shop. I mean, there were a couple of us, there was a couple of coworkers who were of my generation. This was just when kind of Facebook was becoming a powerful tool for communications pre-Instagram, pre all those other platforms we're familiar with now. I definitely brought my expertise in video and the distribution of content online to that work. It was an interesting time politically. It was just at the advent of the internet as a powerful communications tool for campaigns.Chris Erwin:So then you're considering going to business school, you take the GMAT.Zach Blume:I got halfway through the class, and White Collar Brawler, that series, came calling. It was all-consuming. It was so fun. And we produced the hell out of that show, and it got a lot of notoriety. We got a big write-up in the New York Times, like big-Chris Erwin:Give us the context for White Collar Brawler again. What exactly was that project, and what were you supporting?Zach Blume:The log line was basically what happens when you take office workers whose muscles have become dilapidated by sitting in front of a computer all day long and train them to become amateur boxers. It just so happened that the two White Collar workers that were the stars of the show were Nate and Kai. So it was very, kind of like meta, we were the creators, and Nate and Kai were also the stars.The experimental part of it was shooting and producing the series in real-time. So there was an experiential element to the show, meaning as Nate and Kai were training to become boxers, fans of the show could actually come out and train with them, run on the beach in San Francisco or go to a training session with a boxing coach. We had events happening throughout the course of the show. It eventually culminated in an actual fight, a licensed fight in Berkeley between Nate and Kai for the Crown. And we had, I think, 1500 people showed up to that site and paid tickets-Chris Erwin:Was it boxing, mixed martial arts? What was the actual thoughts?Zach Blume:No, just old-school boxing.Chris Erwin:Okay.Zach Blume:It was the real deal. And-Chris Erwin:I may have missed this in the beginning. Who funded this? What was the purpose of it?Zach Blume:It was partially self-funded. It was partially funded by a friend of ours who had sold, in the early internet days, had sold his tech company to Google in one of the early Google acquisitions. So he just privately financed, I mean, we're not talking about big dollars here, and we built a business model around it that included merchandise, ad revenue share, events, ticketed events, and sponsorships, which I was in charge of in addition to other things.And so we actually ran that show at a profit, even though it was just an early internet video web series. It was actually a profitable property, and the idea was to build an entertainment property on the web that could become multi-season, could eventually travel to TV, which it did. It later became a TV series called White Collar Brawlers. And so it was actually super experimental, and I would say, looking back on it, fairly innovative in terms of for three guys who had really no idea what we were doing and had no training in any of this, we built an entertainment property on the internet that was profitable.Back to the question, I mean, that's what distracted me from going to business school because I felt like, first of all, I was learning so much, I was having so much fun creating content with two friends, and you just had a feeling that we were onto something and we didn't know what that thing was. We thought we were going to be an original entertainment company that would just make shows like White Collar Brawler, but we knew there was something. We knew there was a lot of activity and interest in this space. And so that took up all my attention and then took up my attention for the next 12 years.Chris Erwin:I will say from personal experience it saved you a couple of hundred thousand dollars and a lot of agony of actually taking that test.Zach Blume:Right, exactly.Chris Erwin:And being two years out of the workforce, speaking from personal experience.Zach Blume:Right. I know, I know.Chris Erwin:So, okay. And look, this is interesting to think about how you guys, as a founding team, were gelling and coming together. When you guys started talking, "Let's do this White Collar Brawler show as a team," what was your specific role, Zach? What was it like? What are you going to focus on?Zach Blume:Yeah, I mean, it actually reflects the role that I now play and ended up playing when we turned White Collar Brawler into a business. So Nate and Kai are more on the creative side, the creative and production side, both had experience. They had both actually before me had left their kind of "normal jobs," moved to LA, and started making internet video with a vision for again, "We don't know what it is, but there's something going on here, and we want to be a part of it."They had background as almost as creators themselves and also some training, actually with the physical act of production. So Nate and Kai were always much more on the creative side and the production side. And then my role was kind of capital B business. I was responsible for sponsorships. I was responsible for the operations of the show. I was responsible for where we were going to have office space, all that type of stuff. Basically the business side of creativity, and that's the same today. I mean, it's kind of like, it was just a foreshadow of the roles that we ended up playing as we were growing Portal A. And we've always had a super clear and complementary division of labor.I would say when looking for business partners, I think that might be, I mean, your rapport and your ability to communicate is lots of things are really important, but making sure that each person, each principal has a clear role and that they actually like that role and can succeed in that role is I think one of the keys to business success. So we've always had very clear roles. We've always liked our roles and felt like we belonged where we were. That's how it started with White Collar Brawler.Chris Erwin:That's awesome. Yeah, I have to give you some real kudos because you take very early on in your career, and in the digital entertainment ecosystem, you take an IP concept, and you create a diversified, sustainable business model around it where you have revenue coming in from advertising, sponsorships, merch, ticket sales, that's what many different IP properties want to figure out today. And many struggle to do that.Zach Blume:The only we could've described it back then as well as you described it now, but yes, that's basically what it was.Chris Erwin:Yeah, you look around at one another, you have this culmination in a ticketed event where there's over 1500 people pay to see the fight between Nate and Kai. And so you guys look around at one another and say, "Hey, we got something here." Is the next step? Let's found a business, call it Portal A and start doing this at scale. Or did it kind of just naturally happen, saying, "All right, let's find the next project and see where it goes from there."Zach Blume:It was much more, again, the latter. I mean, we did know that there was something brewing; I gave ourselves, at the very least credit for that. Did not have a business model. We did not have a plan. We had a kind of a concept and an idea and a good partnership. And I think that was really important too, is just how well we worked together.When we came out of White Collar Brawler, we had this idea credit to Kai. I believe we really wanted to do a show about whiskey, that that was going to be our next piece of IP that we wanted to develop and the concept behind the show, again because we didn't want, we were just going to be doing original series built for internet video was basically a distillery tour type show, but with a twist where there would be a membership model involved. And for anybody who was in a... 99% of viewers would just watch the show for the entertainment value, any type of good travel show that built that type of audience. But 1% of viewers would subscribe to the show and get a drum of whiskey. For each distillery that we were visiting as part of the show, they would actually get samples in the mail, and it would be kind of a whiskey of the month model married to an entertainment property.And we were coming out of White Collar Brawlers, we were visiting distilleries, getting drunk, trying to figure out this model. And we were super hyped on it. We thought it was a really interesting way to monetize internet video through subscriptions. And we even got into the logistics of shipping, and we were really going down that path, and in the meantime, we were broke, we were like 25 years old and-Chris Erwin:That was my next question. How are you funding all of this?Zach Blume:Well, we paid ourselves an extremely nominal salary. I would call it a stipend when we were making White Collar Brawler enough to survive. And then, coming out of that, we were trying to do our whiskey show, but that stipend went away. So we were without income, really. I mean, I remember going to Bank of America at some point, and there was so little... This is one of our funny stories that we tell each other. I remember this parking lot moment where the three of us had gone to Bank of America, where we had this White Collar Brawler account, or maybe it's a Portal A account. I'm not sure. And there was, I think, less than $1000 in there, and it was one of those like, oh, shit-type moments, and I remember going out to the parking lot and being like to Nate and Kai because I was always kind of the rah-rah guy of the three of us. And just, I remember basically having to give a motivational speech about that we were going to be okay, that this is going to be okay, despite the fact that we had absolutely zero money in the bank.That was where we were at that point. We were trying to figure out this whiskey idea, and then all of a sudden, because of the popularity of White Collar Brawler and some big YouTube videos we had made to promote the series, we started getting some inbound interest from brands. And that was never in the plan. We would think about sponsorships on our original series from brands, but never creative service worked directly to brands, and our first phone call was-Chris Erwin:Explain that difference for the listeners. I think that's a good nuance.Zach Blume:Yeah, I mean, if there was a business model, the business model we were considering was building properties like White Collar Brawler that could be sponsored by, in the best-case scenario, Nike or by Everlast, the boxing company, or by Gatorade or that's who we were pursuing for what-Chris Erwin:So think of title cards and brought to you by et cetera.Zach Blume:Exactly. Or like sponsoring events or merchandise or all that type of stuff. And we had some success, not from the big brands, but we had some success on White Collar Brawler with sponsorships from more regional brands, or like there were some beer companies and some smaller merchandising startups that were part of the sponsorship mix.I will say that we sent out about 500 to 1000 sponsorship emails and got about five sponsors. So we worked hard at it. And so that was the model we were going to pursue even for something like the whiskey show. We were going to look for sponsors and brand sponsors in that way. We never thought we were going to build a creative services company, meaning brands, an advertising company effectively, like brands hiring us as a service provider to create content. That was never, ever something we thought about.We started getting these phone calls. I remember being in a car one time, and I got this random call from a number I did not know, and it turned out to be a marketing manager at the Gap. Her name was Sue Kwon. Shout out, Sue Kwon, if you're out there. She was our first real client after White Collar Brawler. And we started making videos for the Gap, as kind of like a little agency production company.Then we got some more calls. There was a Tequila company that wanted us to make a web series called Tres Agaves Tequila. They wanted us to make a web series shot in Mexico about the origins of Tequila. Then we got a call from Jawbone, which was a hot Bluetooth speaker company at the time-based in the Bay Area. They wanted us to make a music video featuring a bunch of early YouTube influencers or creators.So we started getting these, we called them gigs at the time because literally all we were trying to do is pay our rent and so we could make the whiskey shows. We were just trying to get a little bit of income coming in so we could actually go out and make our dream whiskey show. And there were fun projects, and we weren't making advertising. We were making content, and that was a big difference for us. We weren't making pre-roll ads or 30-second ads. We were making web series for brands and music videos for brands and all that type of stuff. And without knowing it, we kind of stumbled across an area that was in high demand, which was brands trying to figure out what to do on platforms like YouTube and social media with video. We had established ourselves as understanding that world.So that's the origin of our branded content business which became the core of our business for many, many years was just one-off phone calls, unexpected phone calls, taking projects as gigs to pay the bills, and just kind of doing our best and seeing where it led.Chris Erwin:Hey listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of the Come Up. I have a quick ask for you if you dig what we're putting down. If you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show, it helps other people discover our work, and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview.What was the moment where you felt it evolved from, "Hey, it's the three of us rotating between gigs, hiring freelancers as need be, to what became a business, which is called a systematized and efficient way to deliver consistent quality around a good or service."Zach Blume:I think the first year was the gig model. It was just a patchwork of projects in order to generate some form of income. The second year it started to feel real. There started to be a fairly steady flow of inbound interests, and then a kind of something we be started to become known for a type of content. It was kind of humorous, entertaining, felt like it was native to the internet and to YouTube.I think in that second year was when it started to feel like a business, and then some light clicked for me that we actually needed to do some business planning and thinking, and I had no idea what I was doing. I mean zero, negative. Negative idea what I was doing. But I had grown up where my dad was a small business owner, so I had some exposure, but I just remember being it was just like a vast sea of unknown principles and requirements that I had to navigate.Chris Erwin:How did you figure that out? Did you put together an advisory board? Did you call your dad? Were you calling some other friends in business?Zach Blume:One of our earliest advisors was not a business advisor. He was our sensei in some forms in the earliest days. And this is another shout-out to Steve Wolf, who you may know, who was on the executive team of Blip, which was one of those many early internet video platforms. He really helped us understand the space.We did not have a formal advisory board. We did not have a board. And it was truly trial and error. That's the best way I can describe it. It was just using our brains and figuring things out through mistakes and successes. It is a total blur looking back on it, but I think we were a good partnership. We had our heads screwed on straight, and we kind of learned how to operate.Chris Erwin:Another important part, too, is, like you said, when you all looked at your bank account, and everyone's face went white, but you were the rah-rah guy, which is like, "Hey, guys, we're going to figure this out. Where there's a will, there's a way." And I think that's a very important role. Shout to Steve Wolf. He was one of the execs that oversaw the AwesomenessTV network when I was there in 2014, 2015 timeframe. Super sharp guy, OG in the digital space. So not surprised to hear that he was a valuable advisor to you.All right, so then I think there's another pretty big moment where your business takes an even bigger step up. And I think this has to do with becoming the official partner for the YouTube Rewind project. The moment where you felt, "Okay, we're really onto something here."Zach Blume:Yeah, it was coincidental. We were introduced to somebody at YouTube in 2011 as a three-person team that was making internet video content and mostly on YouTube. And Rewind was just a twinkle of an idea. I mean, it was like there was a minor budget. It was basically a countdown of the top videos of the year. The budget was, I think, $20,000 in the first year to make Rewind. And we shot it in a small studio location. It was one of our earliest projects, and it was before Rewind became Rewind, the big thing that many of us are familiar with. It was a major validator for us to start working with YouTube directly as a client. And Rewind eventually became a project that defined our growth for many, many years to come. But it started very, very small.Chris Erwin:From that project. You've been around for now for 12 years, being founded around 2010. What did the growth in scaling part of your business looks like? With YouTube Rewind and other marquee projects, you're starting to get a sense of what are we actually building towards. Was there a point of view there or like, "Hey, we have inbound interests, we're working with brands and advertisers," all of a sudden we're working with publishers, and were you just kind of being more reactive or was it a mix of being reactive and proactive?Zach Blume:The best analogy I can draw is to kind of riding a wave. This may resonate with you, but I don't think we knew what was around the next corner or what the next thing was going to look like. We were just building momentum in those early years and taking each project as it came. We knew we had something. We knew we had a good partnership. We knew we were starting to bring some really interesting, smart people to the team, clients that were really willing to push some boundaries. And I was learning as I went along how to run a business, and Kai was learning, and Nate was learning how to create amazing content, and there was not a lot of foresight. It was mostly about riding a wave and seeing where the wave took us. Then doing a really good job. That was really important because every project, the success or not success for the project kind of dictated what the next chapter was going to look like.So we just focused on trying to build some good fundamentals for the business, trying to make sure we were profitable because we had to be and just making work that we were proud of. That's the extent of our planning, I think, was just what did the next three months look like and how do we keep riding this wave?Chris Erwin:Yeah, and that's something I think worth emphasizing for the listeners where it's, so often people will say you have to be super strategic in planning every single move and where is their white space and how are you going to beat out your competitors to get it? But I think when you are building a small business, and this is something that I reeducate myself on consistently with RockWater, it's really about the basics, which is know your core service offering and nail it and delight clients, from there, that's really the core foundation from where you grow and where other things can emerge. And I think that's a testament to really what you guys have done for well over a decade is you know your lane, and you operate so effectively within it that is now, over the past few years, created some other really exciting opportunities for you, your success in your lane led to the investment by Wheelhouse a couple of years back. So how did that come to be? Because I think that's a pretty big moment for the company.Zach Blume:That fast-forward a bit over years of misery and happiness and everything in between. We threw ourselves entirely into growing Portal A for the bulk of our 20s. It was all-encompassing, tons of sacrifices that were made to other parts of our lives, which I'm okay with looking back. I do think that 20s are a good time to throw yourself and just be completely focused and passionate about something like this. And we built that branded business. We diversified the type of clients we were working with. Projects got bigger and bigger, Rewind got bigger, and all the rest of our projects got bigger.Starting around 2016, we wanted very badly to return to the original thesis of Portal A, which was creating an original entertainment properties for the web. That's where it all started. And we had spent so many years working with brands, and it was fantastic, and it was a good business, and we got to make really cool stuff. But we had this hunger to return to the kind of to our entertainment roots in some ways. And we're not talking at that point about TV shows on broadcast, but about entertainment that was built for internet consumption.So we started taking steps back in that direction. As we were continuing to grow the branded business and expand in that area, we were committing ourselves to the original entertainment dream and started making shows horribly oversimplified what it took to actually start doing that again. But we started making shows again. We kept the branded business running and growing. And-Chris Erwin:When you started making shows, were you deficit-financing these yourself? So you were developing them internally and then taking them out as a slate to pitch and sell? Or were these being funded by other digital and streaming platforms that were going to put this content on their channels?Zach Blume:We were developing them internally, as a kind of a traditional development arm, and then taking them out to streaming and digital buyers. We were not doing the White Collar Brawler model, where we were building properties completely independently. So we did kind of slot in a little bit more into back into the entertainment ecosystem versus building our own properties, which that could be a whole separate conversation about the drawbacks and the benefits of that.So we were finding our way to making original series, again, we hired ahead of originals a guy named Evan Bregman, who's now at Rooster Teeth who's a good friend. And we started kind of trying to build that business again, and eventually, we started to feel like the branded business was running really well and growing year over year. We felt in order to take the next step forward on the entertainment side of our business. We needed a partner.So we had been a completely independent entire course of our trajectory. We were running a really good business at the time. It was very profitable, and the growth trajectory was really attractive, I think to outsiders. And so we started taking meetings with potential partners with the idea of strategically aligning ourselves to somebody who could level us up. We weren't looking for a sale. We were looking for truly a strategic partner.Chris Erwin:Were you running a formal process here where there was a mandate of, "We seek a strategic partner, we're going to take meetings over the next two months?" Or was it, "Hey, these relationships that we create in the industry, we got some inbounds, let's take these meetings with perhaps a little bit more intent than we would've a couple of years ago."Zach Blume:It was not a formal process in the sense that we had a banker or some advisor who was guiding us through it. But it was a process in that it was fairly intentional. Remember sitting down with Nate and Kai and listing out the players in the original entertainment world, whether that was individuals or production companies, mostly who we think would be good partners for us, and starting to navigate through our network to see who would be interested in talking. And the thing that I've found, especially in that period, which was 2017, '18 was when we were starting to have those conversations, it was a pretty hot period for digital media. I think there was a lot of consolidation going on. Our experience was once we started having a couple of those conversations, and people started to see our numbers and see the fact that we were running an actually profitable business that was growing year over year.It just like word got out, and it was a little bit of a domino. And so I just remember over the course of 2017, 2018, we took like 15 or 20 strategic meetings with potential strategic partners. Again, not running it through a banker or anything like that, but just kind of word of mouth. And it was a really interesting experience, and learned a lot about ourselves and about the space. And we just really clicked with Brent Montgomery and Ed Simpson, who were, at the time they, had sold their TV production company to ITV and they were working at ITV at the time but starting to think about what their post-ITV move was going to be, which would eventually become Wheelhouse and just to immediate connection with both of them on a personal and kind of business level.To them, we looked like a really smart partner. They felt like a really smart partner to us. And that's how that started. And there were other conversations going on at the time, but Brent and Ed and eventually Wheelhouse always felt like the right fit for us.Chris Erwin:From that first meeting with Wheelhouse, did they indicate in the room, "Hey, we want to do a deal, we're going to make an offer," or did it take a while to get there?Zach Blume:Well, this story I always tell about Ed, who everybody should know, Ed Simpson, he's an amazing guy, is that within five minutes of our first meeting he asked us, "Are you Butellas?" And I was floored. I was like-Chris Erwin:Gets right to the point.Zach Blume:I was like, we just shook hands. We were just getting to know each other, but I think honestly it's a testament to directness, and I think that actually really helped was kind of just getting our cards on the table from early days. And I think from the beginning. It was clear that Ed and Brent were looking for their first partners. Brent is also like no BS. He knows what he wants, he goes out and gets it, and the intent for an investment, a partnership of some sort, was clear from the very beginning. The eventual process took very long.Chris Erwin:How long was that process?Zach Blume:I think the timeframe from offer letter or LOI to signed paperwork was about a year. But I think there was a six-month or eight-month, even maybe even a full-year courtship before that. So the whole process from first meeting with Ed, where he asked us what our EBITDA was after shaking his hand, to signing paperwork and then collapsing on the floor because we were so exhausted was maybe year and a half, two years.Chris Erwin:Yeah. It always takes longer than people expect.Zach Blume:Yeah. It's incredible. And there were multiple points where that deal almost fell completely apart. In fact, I was sure it was done. It was toast. And what I've learned from other founders that I've talked to that have done deals, whether it's a sale or a minority investment or some sort of strategic partnership like this, is every time there's a deal, it almost fails twice or three times or more.It's just in the nature of things when there's two negotiators that there's going to be some moments of staring into the abyss. And I actually haven't heard of a deal that hasn't had that. So I learned that, in retrospect, at the time, they were hugely existential moments because we had put so much time and energy, and money into making this happen and having the deal almost fell apart multiple times was, it was really intense.Chris Erwin:Yeah. After having been a part of many M&A and capital raising processes throughout my career before RockWater when I was a banker, and then also at Big Frame, where I hired my old investment bank to represent us in a sale to Awesomeness backed by DreamWorks. And then at RockWater now, there's so many variables. You have different business models, you have different team cultures, you have leadership, you have investors, and to align on, are we working towards the same mission? Do we want the same thing in the future? Do we want the same thing now when we integrate? Where are we complementary? Will we actually succeed combined, or there alternative ways to do this? And I think it really is a special thing. We read a lot of deal headlines in the trade, so everyone thinks like, "Oh, deals get done all the time, it's easy."For all those headlines of the success, there's many, many more instances where deals have fallen apart that we don't hear about. I think the best thing that you guys had, Zach, was your BATNA, your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, but also your leverage. You had a profitable independent business. It was you, Zach, and Kai as the founders. You were growing, and you were profitable, and you could sustain with a partner or without a partner. And essentially, that led to a great deal for you guys. So it's awesome to say.Zach Blume:Yeah, it's true. I mean, we were not trying to parachute at our business in any stretch. We weren't trying to sell to then do an arm out to then leave. We were trying to level up, and I agree it was our ability to walk was good leverage for us, but we really wanted to do it because we really had committed ourselves to making this type of strategic move. I think it's very different when you're trying to capitalize on a moment in exit versus when you're trying to make an actual partnership to take the next step up in a business. And we just weren't ready to, and we still aren't ready to sunset Portal A.This is becoming our life's work. We are committed. We are always kind of doubling down on our commitment. Sometimes I can't believe I've been doing this for 12 years. It's unbelievable. And I hope that we do it for many, many, many, many, many more years.Chris Erwin:You found your magnum opus in the first company that you founded pretty rare and pretty incredible, right?Zach Blume:Yeah. I mean it's amazing, but it also puts a lot of pressure on that to fulfill a lot of parts of your being and or your professional desires. When you're focused on one thing for so long, as opposed to a lot of entrepreneurs who kind of jump or leapfrog from one thing to the next. We've had to come to grips with the fact that this is our baby, and it's continuing to be our baby. And it's a long play. It's a long run.Chris Erwin:This is actually a good segue to think about how this business is fulfilling to you, kind of over the past couple of years, some key changes that you've made of, how you're rewarding some of your most prominent team members, elevating them to partner and then thinking about what you want to grow into. So let's get into that. I look at your business. In your 20s, it was kind of the freshman segment of Portal A really starting to become into a real business. Then in your 30s, it's kind of like the sophomore years where you're starting to scale up and start to realize some pretty incredible success. And now you've got this incredible foundation.So not to aid you in front of everyone, but I think you and the founding team are entering your 40s over the next year or two years or so, entering the junior and senior years of your business. And for you guys to continue to be excited and fulfilled, tell us about some of the recent moves that you've made at the company and then where you want to go. What does that look like?Zach Blume:It's a great question. I wonder what happens after the junior and senior year sets. We're definitely at a different life stage, just on a personal level, then we were when we were on the treadmill moving 100 miles per hour in our 20s and in the kind of like the first half of Portal A and the deal with Wheelhouse was definitely like a marker, or maybe it was the dividing line between the freshman and sophomore era as you put it.First of all, I mean the last couple of years have been crazy, the pandemic, the election in 2020, there's been a lot of volatility in the world over the last few years, but what we're trying to do in the face of that volatility and kind of coming out of the Wheelhouse partnership, which again marked a new chapter for us is, create A on the business side sustainability and kind of consistency. And we've been able to do that. I mean, we've been profitable, consistent from a numbers perspective for many years, but it definitely felt for many years, we were running on a treadmill trying to keep up.And over the last several years, we've been trying to do as we enter into new periods of our lives personally, as we bring other people into the business as partners is create a business that doesn't feel like you're about to gasp for air and collapse at the end of every year, but actually create something that's sustainable and supports other parts of our lives that are really important to us. Family, having kids, all that type of stuff.I think on the business side, it's like, and I think we've done this over the last several years, but how do we move from sprinting to running at a good pace and building something that feels sustainable over the course of the next chapter of our lives as our lives change. And that's been really important, and you mentioned this, but bringing, we brought four new partners into the business. Our head of production, our head of business operations, our managing director, and our head of talent partnerships all had been with us for five to seven years each. And we made them partners a couple of years ago.We've invested in our team in a way that we always try to take care of people, but we truly doubled down on that over the last several years so that people feel like they're working at a place that they can work at for many years and feel very taken care of and part of a community, et cetera.Chris Erwin:Quick question on partnership front. So when you elevate these individuals to partners, does that mean there's a compensation bump but is also a bigger voice at the table for bigger strategic decisions for the company? What is the value exchange for that?Zach Blume:They went from kind of executives to partners. I mean, they're always executives, and I think what a partnership means is they participate in the profitability of the company. They participate in an exit. If there is a future, another deal on the horizon, they would have a stake in that. And then they have visibility into all aspects of the business and a seat at the table for really important business decisions around the type of work we take on, the type of things we invest in, the vision that we lay out for the company, the priorities for the year or for the next few years, et cetera.So it's been incredible, and I think it was a big moment. It was always Nate, Kai, and I sitting in a room, staring at each other's faces and trying to figure things out. And to bring in Robyn, Emma, Elyse, and Brittani, they're all so incredibly smart and powerful in their own ways, and it's just made our decision-making much more thoughtful, multifaceted, strategic, and I think intelligent, that group of three became a group of seven. That's been a major milestone and moment for us.So that was a big part of things. And investing in our team and doubling down on the team's wellness and creating a pace of work that was sustainable, not working over Thanksgiving, all that type, taking long breaks, giving days, all sorts of steps we've taken over the last several years to make Portal A sustainable business entity over many years.So that's number one in terms of what this chapter looks like. And I think number two is we just want to make good shit. At the end of the day, when we put ourselves in the future and try to look back on what will feel most valuable about this whole experience, what we make because we are a creative company is at the top of the list. So investing in the quality of the work that we do, investing in projects that may not be the most profitable or they may even not be profitable at all, but that are important to us creatively experimenting in new content formats, longer form, feature-length type stuff, short film, all sorts of getting back to kind of our roots in some ways as experimental content producers and investing in the quality of the work that we're making either on the original side of the business or on the brand side of the business that has become kind of central to our whole vision and identity is just this relentless commitment to quality.Chris Erwin:I want to touch on that because when we were preparing for this interview, something that we spoke about was, yeah, your commitment to creative quality and craft. Sometimes that is undervalued, sometimes that feels like it's going against the grain, and like you said, Zach, maybe there's a near-term impact where these new IP concepts, they're not profitable immediately, but there's actually long-term value to it where adherence to that mission keeps the leadership and founding team galvanized and fulfilled. It also keeps your business exciting for new team members that you want to recruit, building towards future opportunity where there can be much more meaningful revenues to generate in the future.So that's hard to do when you face kind of the near-term headwinds of those decisions, but you got to be steadfast in that it's clearly worked for you guys for over 12 years, and I think that that's just an important reminder that this is a founding value of our company and that's what's going to continue to drive long term success for the next 10, 20 plus years.Zach Blume:Everything you just said, I would like you to come speak to our company, and we can all talk about it together. I mean, that's exactly where we are at. What we'll define the next five, 10, however many years of this adventure will be the quality of the work that we're making. I don't want to speak too soon, and I'm going to knock on wood, but I feel like we've cracked the code on how to run this business well and how to find good people, take care of our people, take care of ourselves, find our lane and operate really well in our lane. And what's going to define the next chapter is how good is the stuff we're making. Is it something we're proud of? And that's both from a kind of, almost like, a spiritual or existential level, but it does layer back to business because we believe what will differentiate us is the quality of the work that we're creating. And so it will lead to new opportunity and new horizons when we're making really good stuff.Chris Erwin:Last one or two questions before we get into rapid fire and we close out here is, are there any current projects that you're working on or things that you're thinking about that maybe are good signals to the listeners of the type of things that you're going to be doing more of going forward?Zach Blume:One really interesting one is completely different from a lot of the work that people may know us for, but my partner Nate is developing a feature documentary. We've done one feature-length documentary, we did it with YouTube original called State of Pride, all about the origins and the genesis of Pride festivals across the country. And it's a beautiful film called State of Pride. It's on YouTube. Nate did a really cool, together with Portal A, did a really cool 30-minute documentary in 2020 about the response from the Trump administration to the first year of COVID.So we've definitely played with longer-form documentary projects. This project is called Fault Lines, and it is a longer-formed feature documentary about housing in America and about the shortage of housing in America, which is driving up housing costs for everybody. Kind of like the deep backstory on where that all comes from.No brands associated with that project. It's going to be financed by foundations and private funders, but we're really excited about it, and it's that kind of getting back to telling interesting stories, experimenting with new formats. It's not going to be the core of our business for the next several years, but we are going to be investing in those types of projects where we can kind of make a name for ourselves in new spaces.And then, of course, we're doing all sorts of cool stuff with our brand partners like big, splashy campaigns that are coming out later this year that I shouldn't talk about yet, but doing a lot of work with Target and Google and we have long-standing partners at Lenovo, the computer maker and all sorts of cool branded stuff. We have original shows in the pipeline.So I think the business mix for us is branded content. Again, nothing that we make should ever feel like a commercial, and if it does, we've failed ourselves and our partners. So content that is made in partnership with brands feels like something you'd actually want to watch. That's one pillar. The second pillar is original series. We just released Level Up, which is a show on Snapchat starting Stephen Curry mentoring a new generation of athletes. So there's all sorts of series like that that we're working on.Then this new area, which is short films, documentary feature films that we're investing in as a loss leader, like truly a loss leader, but as a way to diversify the type of content we're making and invest in quality like I was just talking about.Chris Erwin:That's great. You guys are doing a lot. Last quick question before rapid fire, how would you succinctly describe how your leadership philosophy has evolved now, being, call it 12 years into the Portal A business?Zach Blume:When you're building something, especially for us, we started from zero. We didn't come from the space. We didn't have any relationships. It was completely homegrown and organic. When you're building something, it's like you're captaining a tiny little ship in very rocky waters, and it is survival in some ways. I mean, it's both like I'm just picturing someone on the deck of a little dinghy in the middle of the ocean, just like yelling and surviving and getting thrown all over the place, and you're just trying to survive and make it through the first few years. And I think that was in many ways what leadership, just getting through the choppy waters and trying to grow and survive, was what it looked like for many years in the early days of growing our company.I think now that we've made it through those choppy waters and kind of established ourselves and built something that has a foundation underneath it. I really focus on sustainability and vision. And so that means creating an environment where people can be fulfilled creatively in terms of the people that they work with in terms of the pace of the work, both for the team that works with us and also for us, for ourselves. So creating that kind of a rhythm that feels not like you're like a tiny boat in a gigantic ocean and just trying to survive, but that feels steady and sustainable and solid. So creating that kind of consistency and strength, and that's one side of it. And then, for many years, it was just eat what you killed. And that was so many years of growing the company.Now it's like, "Okay, who do we want to be and who are we and who do we want to be?" And I think I spend so much time thinking about that and then communicating that back to the team and then repeating it over and over and over and over again and giving people something that they can understand and hold onto and feel like they're working toward a common cause has become so much more important now than it was when we were just basically in survival mode. So I think, yeah, sustainability and vision have become the most important pieces.Chris Erwin:I love that. Very well said, Zach. All right, so last segment from me giving you a bit of kudos at the end of this interview. Look, a lot of the people that I interview on the show, I've known for years, if not decades or more. I've actually interviewed people that I've known for over 30 years on this show. I've really only gotten to know you over the past. I think like two to three months through a handful of conversations. But I will say some of the kudos is it feels like I've known you a lot longer than that. I think we have a really shared sensibility, and I think that that's a testament to in this space.What I really like about being at the intersection of digital and entertainment is that there's just some really good people in it. And I think that's not the same from a lot of other industries that I've worked in. And I think you really embody that spirit. I think you really care about your people. I think you really care about your clients and your team and your partners, and that's really valuable. And I can even sense that in what the audience isn't hearing in between these segments is I really just love that note, how you are like the rah-rah spirit for your team. You've even been that for me, talking me up about me as a podcast host and supporting our content work where I'm going through a bit of my own existential crisis with RockWater on, I can feel that very positive energy from you, and I think that makes you a very, very, very compelling leader.Lastly, just to reiterate one of the points I made earlier, you have this extreme focus on your core service and product and on your team and doing right by your client partners. And I think that is actually shows incredible strategic focus and vision versus some really complex framework for how Portal A is going to take over the entire digital entertainment ecosystem with 10 different business models. You guys have nailed your core, and it's given you so much opportunity for what I define as the very exciting junior and senior years that are going to come for you. So massive kudos to you and the team for what you've built exemplary, and I look forward to many more conversations in the future.Zach Blume:Thank you. It feels like you understand us, and I really appreciate that. So thank you for that.Chris Erwin:For sure. Easy to do. All right, so to the rapid-fire, I'm going to ask six questions and the rules or as follows, you'll provide short answers. Maybe just one sentence, maybe just one to two words. Do you understand the rules, Zach?Zach Blume:Yes, I do.Chris Erwin:Okay, cool. All right, first one, proudest life moment.Zach Blume:Birth of my daughter.Chris Erwin:What do you want to do less of in 2022?Zach Blume:Worrying about the state of our union?Chris Erwin:Okay, what do you want to do more of?Zach Blume:Making work that we are proud of and stands the test of time.Chris Erwin:One to two things drive your success?Zach Blume:Focus and commitment, and loyalty.Chris Erwin:Okay, last three here. Advice for media execs going into the second half of this year and 2023.Zach Blume:Brace yourselves. I mean, I don't want to fear monger or create an atmosphere of angst or anxiety, but I definitely can see that there are headwinds ahead and many of us have been through these periods before, and we can make it through, but it's definitely a time to focus on fundamentals and be aware of your costs and brace yourselves for what could be a choppy period.Chris Erwin:Yeah, well said. Any future startup ambitions?Zach Blume:Not beyond what we're doing. I mean, if there's ever sunset to Portal A, I would love to get involved again in the political world. And we've done a lot of political work over the years through Portal A but at the moment, continuing to double down on what we're building.Chris Erwin:Got it. The easy final one for you. How can people get in contact with you?Zach Blume:I don't know, old school email, I mean, really old school, I guess, would be a landline, but email Zach, Z-A-C-H@portal-a.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn, but that sounds really lame, so just send me an email.Chris Erwin:Okay. I think LinkedIn is great.Zach Blume:No, I love Linkedin, but I just don't want to be the guy hawking his LinkedIn profile.Chris Erwin:Got it. All right, Zach, that's it. Thanks for being on the Come Up podcast.Zach Blume:It's been a pleasure, Chris. It's a great service to the digital media, community and world and really appreciated being here.Chris Erwin:All right, quick heads up that our company has a new service offering. We just introduced RockWater Plus, which is for companies who want an ongoing consulting partner at a low monthly retainer, yet also need a partner who can flex up for bigger projects when they arise. So who is this for? Well, three main stakeholders. One, operators who seek growth and better run operations. Two, investors who need help with custom industry research and diligence. And three, leadership who wants a bolt-on strategy team and thought partner.So what is included with RockWater Plus? We do weekly calls to review KPIs or any ad hoc operational needs. We create KPI dashboards to do monthly performanc
Welcome to episode 3 of Watching the Underground! The internet's only podcast binging, recapping and annotating AwesomenessTV's The Underground. Your hosts are the boys of This is Awesome? - Joaquin, Frank and Chuck. In this episode we are discussing The Underground episodes 10-13. Covering the final episodes of the season, we watch three blow off matches: a raucous triple threat, a traditional tag match, and a wild tornado ladder match for control of The Underground! Find every episode of The Underground HERE to follow along.
Welcome to episode 2 of Watching the Underground! The internet's only podcast binging, recapping and annotating AwesomenessTV's The Underground. Your hosts are the boys of This is Awesome? - Joaquin, Frank and Chuck. In this episode we are discussing The Underground episodes 5-9. Covering Act 2 of the season, the drama picks up almost as much as the match quality, and the players move around the board as we build toward a brother vs brother clash that will change the Underground forever. Find every episode of The Underground HERE to follow along. Let us know what you think of the series on twitter @TIAPOD or at thisisawesomepod@gmail.com
Welcome to episode 1 of Watching the Underground! The internet's only podcast binging, recapping and annotating AwesomenessTV's The Underground. Your hosts are the boys of This is Awesome? - Joaquin, Frank and Chuck. In this episode we are discussing The Underground episodes 1-4. Covering Act 1 of the season, we learn about the origins of the show, the basic premise of the series, and meet all of the colorful characters vying for control of the Underground. Find every episode of The Underground HERE to follow along. Let us know what you think of the series on twitter @TIAPOD or at thisisawesomepod@gmail.com
Did you believe in magic, fairytales and mystical creatures as a child? Maybe a part of you still does! Or perhaps you fully embrace the idea of other-worlds hiding just beyond our physical understanding. Whatever the case may be, you're in for a real treat because Patti Negri, my amazing guest today, is the Good Witch of Hollywood and world-renowned psychic-medium! Patti is widely known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show, Ghost Adventures, and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube, Tfil With Elton Castee. She is also the international bestselling author of Old World Magick For The Modern World: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques To Balance, Empower, & Create A Life You Love, a book that has graced my library for years. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows, from Master Chef, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at UniversityMagickus.com, an online Spirituality School. In this wildly inspiring episode, you'll hear Patti's professional definition of some common terms that are easily confused in the media, such as “witch,” “psychic,” “medium,” “wicca” and “spellcasting.” Patti tells us how magik, manifestation and her unconditional belief that she can do anything got her through insurmountable health issues and caused her to be chosen from 10,000+ others to perform on the global stage. She shares how simple practices such as tuning into your heart, refusing to identify as a victim and setting small “staircase” goals can make your dream life your reality. You can find Patti's features, offerings, podcasts, YouTube and more at pattinegri.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review to let me know! Thank you for tuning into Awakening Aphrodite! TIME STAMPS 00:05:34 Old World Magic For The Modern World 00:12:04 What Is A Psychic? 00:14:37 What Is A Medium? 00:19:33 What Is A Witch? 00:24:28 The Wiccan Religion 00:35:20 Survival, Love And Fear 00:38:04 Tips For Overcoming Fear-Based Obstacles 00:43:10 Passion And Doubt 00:47:20 Can I Spellcast On Others? 00:49:10 Is Being Possessed Voluntary? 00:52:14 How Patti Negri Manifested Her Life On Stage 00:55:47 Patti's Experience On America's Got Talent 00:55:35 Following The Moon Cycles 01:00:05 Check Out My Monthly Online Women's Circle! 01:01:39 How To Find Patti You can find Amy at amyfournier.com and watch this episode on Awakening Aphrodite Podcast/FitAmyTV! For special discounts on her FAVORITE products, visit her affiliate page!
Did you believe in magic, fairytales and mystical creatures as a child? Maybe a part of you still does! Or perhaps you fully embrace the idea of other-worlds hiding just beyond our physical understanding. Whatever the case may be, you're in for a real treat because Patti Negri, my amazing guest today, is the Good Witch of Hollywood and world-renowned psychic-medium! Patti is widely known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show, Ghost Adventures, and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube, Tfil With Elton Castee. She is also the international bestselling author of Old World Magick For The Modern World: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques To Balance, Empower, & Create A Life You Love, a book that has graced my library for years. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows, from Master Chef, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at UniversityMagickus.com, an online Spirituality School. In this wildly inspiring episode, you'll hear Patti's professional definition of some common terms that are easily confused in the media, such as “witch,” “psychic,” “medium,” “wicca” and “spellcasting.” Patti tells us how magik, manifestation and her unconditional belief that she can do anything got her through insurmountable health issues and caused her to be chosen from 10,000+ others to perform on the global stage. She shares how simple practices such as tuning into your heart, refusing to identify as a victim and setting small “staircase” goals can make your dream life your reality. You can find Patti's features, offerings, podcasts, YouTube and more at pattinegri.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review to let me know! Thank you for tuning into Awakening Aphrodite! TIME STAMPS 00:05:34 Old World Magic For The Modern World 00:12:04 What Is A Psychic? 00:14:37 What Is A Medium? 00:19:33 What Is A Witch? 00:24:28 The Wiccan Religion 00:35:20 Survival, Love And Fear 00:38:04 Tips For Overcoming Fear-Based Obstacles 00:43:10 Passion And Doubt 00:47:20 Can I Spellcast On Others? 00:49:10 Is Being Possessed Voluntary? 00:52:14 How Patti Negri Manifested Her Life On Stage 00:55:47 Patti's Experience On America's Got Talent 00:55:35 Following The Moon Cycles 01:00:05 Check Out My Monthly Online Women's Circle! 01:01:39 How To Find Patti You can find Amy at amyfournier.com and watch this episode on Awakening Aphrodite Podcast/FitAmyTV! For special discounts on her FAVORITE products, visit her affiliate page!
Did you believe in magic, fairytales and mystical creatures as a child? Maybe a part of you still does! Or perhaps you fully embrace the idea of other-worlds hiding just beyond our physical understanding. Whatever the case may be, you're in for a real treat because Patti Negri, my amazing guest today, is the Good Witch of Hollywood and world-renowned psychic-medium! Patti is widely known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show, Ghost Adventures, and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube, Tfil With Elton Castee. She is also the international bestselling author of Old World Magick For The Modern World: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques To Balance, Empower, & Create A Life You Love, a book that has graced my library for years. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows, from Master Chef, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at UniversityMagickus.com, an online Spirituality School. In this wildly inspiring episode, you'll hear Patti's professional definition of some common terms that are easily confused in the media, such as “witch,” “psychic,” “medium,” “wicca” and “spellcasting.” Patti tells us how magik, manifestation and her unconditional belief that she can do anything got her through insurmountable health issues and caused her to be chosen from 10,000+ others to perform on the global stage. She shares how simple practices such as tuning into your heart, refusing to identify as a victim and setting small “staircase” goals can make your dream life your reality. You can find Patti's features, offerings, podcasts, YouTube and more at pattinegri.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review to let me know! Thank you for tuning into Awakening Aphrodite! TIME STAMPS 00:05:34 Old World Magic For The Modern World 00:12:04 What Is A Psychic? 00:14:37 What Is A Medium? 00:19:33 What Is A Witch? 00:24:28 The Wiccan Religion 00:35:20 Survival, Love And Fear 00:38:04 Tips For Overcoming Fear-Based Obstacles 00:43:10 Passion And Doubt 00:47:20 Can I Spellcast On Others? 00:49:10 Is Being Possessed Voluntary? 00:52:14 How Patti Negri Manifested Her Life On Stage 00:55:47 Patti's Experience On America's Got Talent 00:55:35 Following The Moon Cycles 01:00:05 Check Out My Monthly Online Women's Circle! 01:01:39 How To Find Patti You can find Amy at amyfournier.com and watch this episode on Awakening Aphrodite Podcast/FitAmyTV! For special discounts on her FAVORITE products, visit her affiliate page!
(3/13/2022) Actress Hendrix Yancey is living the dream! 'Stranger Things' season 4 is now streaming on Netflix and Hendrix Stars as 'Thirteen - 013' - a new test subject in the Hawkins Lab and participates in the Nina Project with Dr. Brenner. What an amazing opportunity to be a part of such an iconic series even though she had to shave her head. At just 10, actress Hendrix Yancey has booked the role of a lifetime. She hails from Hot Springs, Arkansas. She signed with her first agent at 5 and was quickly cast in episodes of the TV mini-series ‘Versus' for AwesomenessTV. Hendrix was off and running! This young Arkansas native went on to book roles consistently. Best recognized for her recurring role as ‘Daisy' on the Netflix limited series ‘Unbelievable,' she also stars as ‘Angelina' in the Amazon Prime romance drama, ‘Charming The Hearts of Men. Look for Hendrix Yancey starring opposite Mila Harris, Jo Chrest and Anna Paquin in‘A Friend of the Family' coming to Peacock TV and catch Hendrix soon as ‘Young Elizabeth' in the horror thriller ‘DWELLER.' Mike and returning co-host, Canadian actress Mia Bella are thrilled that Hendrix joined us on ConversationsRadio! Huge thanks to Hendrix and Bella for making episode 128 a success! Go ahead and follow Hendrix Yancey on Instagram @hendrixyancey Enjoy the Podcast!
The way we consume media and content is constantly evolving. With that being said, how do networks and streamers stay in the loop on the trendiest creators on social platforms like TikTok and find ways to put them on everyone's radar? That's where RJ Larese, vp of talent and development and brand partnerships at Nickelodeon and AwesomenessTV, comes in. In this episode, RJ talks about the role social media plays in entertainment and how he helps brands partner with the right content creators. Be sure to follow Paramount @paramountco and share your thoughts with me @colmeetsworld.Subscribe to Young Influentials on your favorite podcast platform!You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting adweek.com/podcasts.Stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter: @adweekpodcasts.And if you have a question or suggestions for the show, send us an email at podcast@adweek.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hi guys, in this episode i interview Patti Negri, she's a celebrity psychic. We discuss many topics everything from the craziest things that have happened to her as a psychic and witch to angels, auras and laws. I absolutely loved interviewing her. Here's more about Patti, Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School. You can check out and follow Patti Negri here: https://www.pattinegri.com Please subscribe to my YouTube & download my podcast everywhere http://www.YouTube.com/Uldouz The Uldouz Show https://open.spotify.com/episode/63dgHDNdAPayW8XC3IzeID?si=nlXRgdqgTgez5SZ_mDU3Qw Listen to The Uldouz Show by Uldouz Wallace on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B09SS6Q7RS&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=podcast_show_detail Also follow my other social media platforms: http://www.Instagram.com/Uldouz http://www.facebook.com/Uldouz http://www.Twitter.com/Uldouz https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdyXHHgg/ Snapchat: Snapuldouz
Episode sixteen of DrinksWithAVC features standout guest, Matt McCall of Pritzker Group, lauded as one of the top 100 VCs in the U.S. and recognized as a power player in media and Hollywood. Vik and Bree delve into Matt's political roots, discuss the philosophical influences that drive his investment strategies, and engage with his insights on the potential of an economic downturn. Matt also sheds light on the McCall Family Foundation's mission for social entrepreneurship and women's rights. Don't miss this compelling conversation that traverses past, present, and future.Links:www.pritzkergroup.com/venture-capitalwww.twitter.com/pritzkervcwww.somethingventured.com (Matt's blog)www.1kproject.org/ (Ukraine support)www.amzn.com/dp/B007XF3SD6/ (Porron wine pitcher)www.amzn.com/dp/1611808308/ (The Heroine's Journey)www.amzn.com/dp/B00R3MHWUE/ (The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership)www.linkedin.com/in/breehanson/www.tripp.comThe first 5 people to reach out to Bree on her LinkedIn will get a lifetime pass to Tripp, the Best VR Meditation/Wellness Experience
In this Episode, Patti Negri shares her view on tapping into the paranormal.Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and “Good Witch” is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show Ghost Adventures and the #1 paranormal show. She is the international bestselling author of Old World Magic for the Modern World: Tips, Tricks, & Techniques to Balance, Empower, & Create a life you love.Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut, and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers, and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books, and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase, and Gregory Hines.Patti is a partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School.It was a pleasure to have her on The Rhonda Swan Show.
Did you find your knowledge already outdated after graduating from university? Business works fast nowadays. Change is happening sooner rather than later. With this, we're seeing recent graduates who join the workforce lack the skills needed. To combat that, one young and savvy entrepreneur provided the solution. SkillBank's CEO Mehak Vohra is helping people get jobs in marketing by skilling them up to get them to land the job. Find out how SkillBank is cutting through the noise to get people into a revitalising industry. Tune in now! What we discussed in this episode: What Mehak does [01:38] The biggest hurdles facing people getting into the industry [02:03] What companies are looking for [02:53] Who is SkilBank for [03:45] How SkillBank works [06:35] A cool story about how SkillBank helped someone level up [07:38] What inspired Mehak to start SkillBank [08:29] Hurdles Mehak faced in building and scaling her company [11:13] The first roles she hired for [13:06] Her vision for the next 5-10 years [13:41] What has changed in the last 18 months [14:31] What's lacking in university education [15:32] Mehak's reason for doing what she does [17:09] Resource Links: SkillBank Website (https://www.joinskillbank.com/) SkillBank Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joinskillbank) SkillBank Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/joinskillbank/?hl=en) SkillBank Twitter (https://twitter.com/joinskillbank) Your Social Voice Website (https://www.yoursocialvoice.com.au/) Become the Mogul of your industry (https://www.mogulcall.com) Join our Mogul Mastermind (https://www.mogulmastermind.com.au/) About Mehak Vohra Mehak is the founder of SkillBank. SkillBank is helping train the next generation of marketers through their online program. Through their free upfront cohort package, students only pay them after they graduate and if they get a job paying $40K or more. Mehak is a 2017 Thiel Fellowship Finalist, and she has been featured on ABC, Forbes, Adweek, AwesomenessTV, and Huffington Post as a consultant for personal branding, Gen Z, and B2B growth marketing. Connect with Mehak through her Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. Connect with The Kim Barrett Show: Subscribe on Youtube Follow Us on Facebook Thanks for checking out today's episode! Be sure to tune in for the next one, subscribe, and share this podcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School. https://www.facebook.com/PattiNegriPsychicMedium/ https://www.instagram.com/patti.negri/?hl=en
Patti Negri, Psychic-Medium and "Good Witch" is best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel & Discovery Plus's #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES and the #1 paranormal show on YouTube TFIL WITH ELTON CASTEE. She is the international bestselling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti's body of work includes appearances on dozens of shows from MASTER CHEF, WipeOut and America's Got Talent to Influencers, YouTubers and crossover talents like Lilly Singh, LaurDIY, Good Mythical Morning and AwesomenessTV. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Chevy Chase and Gregory Hines. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called The Witching Hour and has just launched her second weekly podcast, Patti Negri's Haunted Journal. Patti is partner and Vice President of Paraflixx.com Streaming Service, and partner and educator at University Magickus an online Spirituality School. https://www.facebook.com/PattiNegriPsychicMedium/ https://www.instagram.com/patti.negri/?hl=en
Carri Twigg is deeply engaged with content that takes on the urgent cultural questions confronting America and the world. After 10 years in politics, including serving as Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of Public Engagement for then-Vice President Biden, she is focused on challenging status quo media narratives. As a founding partner and the head of development for Culture House Media, a women of color-owned, premium documentary production house, Carri brings untold stories to the foreground. Selected current projects include a nonfiction series about race and gender in America for Netflix, a series about Black beauty and hair for Hulu with Oprah Winfrey and Tracee Ellis Ross, and a show about a progressive adolescence for Disney+ with Brie Larson and Yara Shahidi.Prior to joining Culture House Media as a Founding Partner, Carri built and consulted on strategic cultural movements, including the California-based Schools Not Prisons Tour and the SuperPAC Save The Day. She worked with VH1 to reprise its iconic “Behind The” franchise, writing and hosting a series looking at issues impacting the 2016 Presidential election titled #BehindTheVote. Her work has been featured on MTV, VH1, AwesomenessTV, Complex News, :ATTN, AwesomenessTV, The Young Turks, and Refinery29.In this episode of Screen Culture, Carri shares her journey from the White House to Culture House. She explains how her experience working in the Obama administration taught her the importance of using storytelling to enable political and societal change, the “cultural scaffolding” of a progressive future America.Carri and Lisa also cover:How Carri connected with her Culture House partners, Raeshem Nijhon and Nicole GalovskiTheir latest projects, including “Hair Tales” for OWN and Hulu and a documentary based on “A People's History of Black Twitter” with Wired Studios and Conde NastHow she hopes to impact screen—and political—culture in the long termFollow Carri on Twitter @carritwigg.https://itvt.com/televisionation
This interview features Sarah Penna, Senior Manager of Creator Launch at Patreon. We discuss how a trip to India inspired her media career, being one of the youngest YouTube MCN founders, her $15 million exit to DreamWorks Animation, how she picks co-founders, marrying a YouTuber-turned Hollywood filmmaker, founding a female-forward entertainment brand, and what's up next for Patreon. Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com---EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Sarah Penna:We had outgrown the office. We were in the National Lampoon office. It was so janky and eventually we moved the talent team to my dining room table. I would cook dinner for the talent team. We would take talent meetings in my living room, which was just so bizarre and unprofessional but worked. My house was kind of a YouTuber hotel. It was very wholesome and very duct tape and bubble gum feeling. We were just kind of figuring it out. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Sarah Penna, senior manager of Creator Launch at Patreon. So, Sarah was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father was a serial entrepreneur and her mother ran the family construction business. Sarah's first foray into media began while studying abroad in India, when she became the translator for a documentary film crew. So after college, she moved to California and immersed herself in LA's up-and-coming digital media scene, which included working with OG YouTuber Phil DeFranco. Sarah rapidly became a digital expert and started her own digital talent management company in 2010, which eventually became Big Frame and was sold to AwesomenessTV and its parent, DreamWorks Animation. Chris Erwin:Today, Sarah runs a team that helps Patreon develop and launch premium talent partnerships, and also advises Frolic Media, a female-forward entertainment brand she co-founded in 2018. Some highlights of our chat include how we first met during an awkward interview moment with a guitar, when having 10,000 subs made you a Top 100 YouTuber, how she picks co-founders, what it's like to marry a YouTuber turned Hollywood filmmaker, and what's up next for Patreon. Now, I've known Sarah for nearly 10 years. She was actually my gateway drug into all things digital entertainment and where it not for her founding Big Frame, I would not be where I am today, and I am forever grateful to her, which makes me super pumped to share her story. All right, let's get to it. Sarah, thank you for being on The Come Up podcast. Sarah Penna:Thanks for having me. Chris Erwin:We got a little bit of history here. So, we'll see how much of that we can get through in 90 minutes before your next thing. Sarah Penna:Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to pack in. Chris Erwin:As always, let's rewind a bit and let's talk about where you grew up. So, my understanding is that you grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Your family had some land in Wyoming. I think your dad was a bit of an entrepreneur, but tell us about your upbringing. Sarah Penna:Yeah. I had a pretty cool childhood. I grew up in Utah. My parents were total hippies, just big personalities, did not grow up in the predominant faith of Utah. So, it was a little bit of an outlier, and my parents own a construction company together. So, a little bit of foreshadowing into how I worked with my husband at one point, but I grew up with an older sister and a younger brother. We had a menagerie of animals all the time, like goats, and my dad kept bees at one point. We always had two or three dogs and a bunch of cats and an iguana and chinchillas. We just had this kind of crazy Bohemian, bizarre, Jewish, hippie not Mormon family. Sarah Penna:So, my parents owned this construction company and became relatively successful with that but my dad has curse, as I do, which is, always coming up with new ideas and deciding to act upon them. He had a Japanese restaurant and he had a furniture company and he had an emergency preparedness kit company, and I- Chris Erwin:Would he do all of these at the same time as the construction business or would it be like stops and starts and all of that? Sarah Penna:No. My mom held it down. She really was the mastermind behind the construction company. She did all of the office work and made sure ... she really ran the company and then my dad was kind of the face of it. He was out at the job sites and in the early days, was actually doing the building. So, I got to see my mom be in this, talk about a male-dominated industry. She would come home so mad because she would get a piece of mail that ... her name's Paula and they would always address Paul, because they couldn't believe that a woman was running a construction company. So, I got to see this powerful woman running this super successful business in basically a hundred percent male-dominated industry. Chris Erwin:Sarah, I've known you for over 10 years and we worked together intimately for at least three or four of them. I had no idea about your background. I just learned more about you in two minutes. It took a podcast and a 10-year relationship to get here. Sarah Penna:That's totally my bad. Chris Erwin:All good. So, okay. As a kid, when your father dabbled in all these new business adventures, was that really exciting for you guys? Maybe frustrating for your mother, but as kids you're like, "Oh, dad's up to some cool stuff again." Sarah Penna:Yeah, it was fun. I was 15 when he did the Japanese restaurant and I got to work in the restaurant and just, it was cool, and I didn't realize the stress and the financial burden that it was putting on my mom and kind of how frustrating it was for her but I see that now, looking back, and she handled it amazingly. She's an incredible woman. But I'm a very early riser, and as a kid, I would ... my dad is, too. He would get up at four or five in the morning and I would, too. He would just load me up in his construction truck and we'd go get pancakes and go milk the goats and go check on his construction sites. So, I got to see the inner workings of that. Then, I love going to the office and rifling through my mom's office supplies. Chris Erwin:Well, I got some important Post-it notes here, got a yellow legal pad, all the things. Sarah Penna:It was so fun as a kid. You're like, pens and Post-it notes, and the office supply closet was just like this heaven. Chris Erwin:My dad, he ran a psychology business and still does for 40 years and had his own office, and then every year he hosted a conference. One of my favorite things is that he would hire his children, me and my twin brother, and we'd have to lick 500 envelopes and put stamps on them. But we got to use all of these office gear, we thought it was the coolest thing ever. Then, after a few years, we're like, "I think we're getting sick from all of this stamp-licking." Sarah Penna:Yeah, probably. Chris Erwin:But separate story. Sarah Penna:That's really funny. Chris Erwin:So, a question, watching your father's entrepreneurial endeavors and also your mother, too, running the business, did you feel like, "Hey, when I grew up, I'm going to have my own business too." Sarah Penna:Honestly, no. So, I was an incredibly shy child. I was very quiet. My family likes to joke that they thought I was just going to buy a cabin in the woods and just frolic in daisy fields and that would basically be all I could handle. So, to the shock of everybody, of what I wound up doing with my career, so no, I was very directionless. I went to a very intense high school that was a college prep school. There was a lot of pressure to kind of figure out what you wanted to do. Frankly, I just didn't have any passions. I wasn't thinking, "Oh, I want to take over the family business or I want to be an entrepreneur." I didn't even have that language. Sarah Penna:So, in a way, that was great because what I wound up doing didn't exist when I was little. If I had said, "Oh, I want to be a lawyer or an actress or what ... " something that did exist, I don't know that I would've found the path that I did find. My parents never called themselves entrepreneurs. They were just, this is what we do and this is how we do it. Chris Erwin:Very interesting, Sarah. So, I'm going to put the puzzle pieces together here. Let's talk about another formative event growing up. You had also mentioned that you studied abroad in India, where you actually learned to speak fluent Nepalese. So, tell us about this transformative moment for you. Sarah Penna:Like I said, I was a very shy child. In college, I kind of blossomed, but maybe in the wrong ways. I partied a lot and just, again, was quite directionless. I was a literature major, which is just like the lazy ... No, I love being a literature major, but it is a non-major. It doesn't really set you up for business success. Originally, actually, I was going to travel. I was going to study abroad in Italy and I had this moment where I just looked at myself and said, "You need to push yourself right now. This is a moment." My college had an incredible study abroad program in Nepal. Sarah Penna:Long story short, they couldn't do it in Nepal. There were some civil unrest, so they moved it to India. I went to India and I lived in a place that didn't have running water, and I did my laundry for six months in a river. I got perspective that I never would've had. During that time I met up with a documentary film, I will say, crew in quotes, because it was just two white dudes traveling around not knowing what they were doing. They were in this tiny little village that I was staying. I was living in a monastery and because I spoke the language I could just hang out with the locals. It was very funny to them that this tiny, little white girl spoke fluent Nepalese. Chris Erwin:Did you take Nepalese in advance of going to India at all? Sarah Penna:No. Chris Erwin:So, you just picked it up in country. Sarah Penna:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Wow. Sarah Penna:Writing is very hard, but the language itself is very intuitive once you fit the pieces together. So, I would help them. Tourists would come. I lived in this monastery for a couple of weeks. Tourists would come and I would help them translate and negotiate and all this stuff. So, these guys came, they were filming. I was like, "I'll join up with you guys and translate for you and help you get interviews and that kind of stuff." Because if you speak the language, it just opens more doors. So, I wound up traveling with them, and one of them I wound up dating, but that's for another story. He was going to UCLA. I was graduating. He was going to UCLA grad school. Sarah Penna:I was graduating college and I wound up learning about documentary film and originally thought I wanted to go into documentary filmmaking. So, 2006 is when I was in India. Chris Erwin:Got it. Did you have an interest in media and the arts before you met this documentary film crew/attractive young man that you wanted to date? Sarah Penna:No, and I didn't have any connections and I didn't have any ... but, again, I was kind of, not in a disparaging way, but I was kind of an empty vessel, right? I had no idea what I was going to do and this thing really sparked me. I loved holding the camera. I loved seeing the story come together. I moved to Venice with him, and this is way too long of a story, so I'll just make it really short through a series of very wonderful coincidences, which involved me randomly picking a documentary film at the LA Film Festival and contacting the filmmaker. I got an internship at World of Wonder and that kind of started my trajectory in media. Chris Erwin:This was the first time you dated a documentary filmmaker. I look at this as a warm up for Joe. We'll get into that later. Sarah Penna:I only dated creative people, [inaudible 00:11:39]. Chris Erwin:Another podcast for your wild party days at Pitzer College. All right, so that led to your first work experience at World of Wonder. So, tell us about what that company was doing and what your role was there. Sarah Penna:World of Wonder in 2008 was probably the most amazing place to work, I have to say. It was constantly drag queens coming in the office, and parties. It was just a wild time. They were filming the first season of Million Dollar Listing, which I was an intern on. They were filming the first season of Tori and Dean: Inn Love, the Tori Spelling Show, which I was an assistant on. They were filming Porno Valley. They were filming ... I mean, it was just like a wild, wild time, incredible company. I loved it. I also recognized that reality TV wasn't really for me. While I was working there, I also was making short films and uploading them to these two new websites. One of them was called YouTube and one of them was called Current TV. Sarah Penna:Current TV was Al Gore's network based in San Francisco, where you would upload short documentaries and then the ones that got the most votes, they would ultimately put them onto their TV network. So, I had a couple documentaries get bought and put onto the TV network and ... Chris Erwin:Were you doing this independently or as part of World of Wonder? Sarah Penna:No, no, totally separately. Chris Erwin:Got it. Again, I had no idea that you did this. Sarah Penna:Yeah. Now, we're in 2007, the first documentary that got picked up was about me getting my medical marijuana license. Chris Erwin:Okay. Sarah Penna:It was a very new thing at that time, and so I documented the whole journey of what it was like to get a medical marijuana license and I smoked a joint on-screen. When I got hired there, it would play in the rotation, and one time Al Gore came to visit the office and they had the TVs up in the office playing Current, and my documentary came on with me smoking a joint and meeting Al Gore at the same time. It was very embarrassing. Chris Erwin:I'm famous/I'm super embarrassed. What a mix of emotions. Sarah Penna:Yes. Chris Erwin:So, Sarah, I have to ask, you're working at World of Wonder, you're working on these incredible programs that are probably being sold to network TV, right? Not digital outlets and streamers. What was the catalyst that you're like, "I want to put my content on YouTube and Current TV." How'd that come to be? Sarah Penna:I just felt something more compelling about it. It felt more free. It felt like, somebody like me coming from Utah with literally zero connections could make something and have it be put on TV within a couple of weeks. Then, on YouTube, you couldn't monetize at the time. It was very rudimentary. I don't know, I just fell in love with it. Chris Erwin:YouTube was founded in 2004 and then, was it bought by Google in 2006, if I remember correctly? Sarah Penna:I think that's right. Then, 2007 Time magazine made you, the cover and the Person of the Year was you, and it was a mirror. I was like, that to me was a moment where I said, "Okay, this is really a thing and I want to be involved in it." Chris Erwin:I think you start meeting some pretty important early personalities and movers and shakers within digital video. I think you met one of the founders of what eventually became Maker Studios, I think. Was it Danny Diamond or Danny Zappin? Is that the same person? Sarah Penna:That's the same person. His YouTube name was Danny Diamond. Chris Erwin:Got it. So, how'd you meet Danny? Sarah Penna:So, I was working at this very small web series production company which, yes, that was a thing in 2008. So, I got laid off right from Current because the financial crisis hit. They laid everyone off. They sold the network to Al Jazeera. I moved back to LA. I had been up in San Francisco, moved back to LA, started working at this web series production company, got introduced to Danny through some mutual friends. He said, "Look, I just got some money from YouTube and I'm filming this thing for this new channel that we're starting called The Station. Why don't you just come up and see what it's like?" So, I go up there and unbeknownst to me, it was every big YouTuber at the time. It was ShayCarl, and KassemG, and Shane Dawson, and Danny, and Lisa Nova, and everybody- Chris Erwin:OG names. Sarah Penna:Funnily enough, my future husband was supposed to be there, but I don't remember exactly what happened, but he wasn't there. Chris Erwin:Okay. So, you're doing this. Are you thinking to yourself, "Oh my God, I'm having so much fun. This is a crazy world." You're embarking on a very exciting career adventure. You're seeing this change in the media industry. Did you feel that at the time or was it more of, "This is fun. I'm meeting some cool people. Let's see where it goes." Sarah Penna:It was more the former. I really thought to myself, I want to be involved in this in some way, shape or form. I really don't know what this is. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Sarah Penna:Not to say that I'm a genius, but I just had something in my gut that said, you've got to be involved in this somehow. You have to make this happen. Chris Erwin:That instinct proved to be pretty powerful for you in starting Big Frame, which we'll get to in a little bit. So, you meet Phil DeFranco, a prominent OG YouTuber, and I think you become a producer for him and his team, right? Sarah Penna:Yeah. So, he hires me in November of 2009 and I worked for him. We launched a new channel, which was like a gaming channel for him. I did PR for him. I handled brand deals for him. I edited because I still knew how to edit at the time. A skill I'm very sad that I lost. That was just an amazing experience. He had split from Maker TV at that time and so, we were kind of running our own thing. I think Phil, to this day, is one of the most brilliant, genius content creators that's come out of the YouTube space. He's just continually reinvented himself and not, just kept doing what he did and stayed successful. So, that was a masterclass in how to run a successful YouTube channel. Chris Erwin:Got it. Also, through Phil DeFranco, you actually end up meeting your future husband, Joe. So, he actually showed up on time for production or maybe a first day that you guys had. How'd you first connect with him? Sarah Penna:Before Phil hired me, I got invited to a Halloween party at his house and Joe was there, and I had actually very embarrassingly seen Joe's videos before meeting him. I was producing a short film with a prominent YouTuber at that time named Olga Kay and we were just doing some fun. We actually crowdfunded it. We raised a couple thousand dollars and made this thing called Olga Kay's Circus. We wanted Joe in it because he had a lot of subscribers at the time. He had 10,000 subscribers, so he was in the Top 100 YouTubers. Chris Erwin:Oh, my God. Sarah Penna:Can you believe that 10,000 subscribers would get you there at that time? So, we wanted Joe in it and we wound up meeting at this Halloween party and then Phil connected us and match made us a little bit, and we went on our first date in January of 2010. Chris Erwin:Then, how soon were you married or engaged after that? Sarah Penna:So, we went on our first date in January 2010 and then we got engaged in September of the same year, and then we were married the next year. Chris Erwin:First date with Joe, January 2010. Engaged, September 2010. Married, 2011. Interesting timing because you launched your first company, Cloud Media, I think in 2010, and you're sharing production space with Joe. So, you're tripling down on the digital media space. You're literally married to a creator. You're sharing space together and you're founding your own media company. But tell us about what was the origins of Cloud Media. Sarah Penna:Yeah, so I basically, again, I didn't say, "Oh, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to raise money." I didn't have a blueprint for that. I didn't know what I was doing, which I think you'll hear a lot of entrepreneurs say, that's kind of a blessing in a lot of ways. So, I did a very big brand deal for Joe. I was able to negotiate a high six-figure deal for him, and using the percentage that I took as his manager from that, I started what I called the Cloud Media. I bootstrapped that company for a year and a half and just operated it based off of the percentages that I was taking from brand deals that I was doing for influencers and YouTubers, whatever we called them at the time. Sarah Penna:My difference was I would start out by not doing contracts with them. We would just have a understanding, which is very common with management companies. Most managers don't have contracts, right? That's more for agents and Maker and Fullscreen at the time were insisting on contract, and Machinima. I was like, "Hey, you don't have to sign a contract with me. Let me just show you what I can do. This is my fee, and if you like it, then you can officially sign onboard and we can go from there." So, that worked really well for me. So, I started signing. I think by the time that we re-founded the company as Big Frame, I had about 30 clients. Chris Erwin:I remember, that was one of the things that attracted me to Big Frame. This is definitely the reputation in the space, is that you had built, Sarah, one of the most premium networks of YouTube creators that existed. Really high quality YouTubers that worked together, that worked with you, and there was really good camaraderie and trust and rapport amongst everybody, and it felt very special and different. So, it's clear that was based on these initial values of, I'm going to do good work and prove myself to you, and that's how we're going to develop a business relationship. Until I came in and then I was like, "Sarah, we need contracts." Sarah Penna:A big influence on those ... those are, me as a person, my core values. But DeStorm, who was my second client outside of Joe, who I just cold called and was living in New York, he really sort of guided me in how he wanted to be treated, how he felt business should be done. He really helped collaborate with me on some of those foundational core values that we carried throughout the duration of Big Frame really. Chris Erwin:So, speaking of that, you're literally learning from one of your clients. Were there any other mentors in the space as you're figuring ... this is the early days. We still say we're in the Wild West of the creator economy, that was the real Wild West of YouTube. So, probably, very few people to learn from. Did you have anyone that you would call on a regular basis and say, "Hey, let's just share notes." Sarah Penna:No, I didn't. Unfortunately, I think the space became quickly competitive. I would say at the beginning there was a little more collaboration between, let's say, like Danny and George Strompolos and myself. We would go up to YouTube and talk to them together as a group and what our needs were and share creator feedback. I think once money started pouring into the space we got a little more siloed, which is understandable, but no, I didn't. I was really out there in the woods like, "Okay, this is what we're doing now." Not really knowing what that was. Just saying, "Okay, this is how we're doing it. This is how our contracts are going to look." Chris Erwin:How old were you at this point? Sarah Penna:I was 26. Chris Erwin:So young. So, then, I think, well, as part of that dynamic, as the space got more competitive, George is launching Fullscreen, Danny is launching Maker, more venture capitals moving to the space. The Google Original Channels program launches, $200 million dedicated fund to help creators produce higher quality content for YouTube, which will then attract more advertisers and more revenue. So, I think at this point is when you eventually connect with Steve Raymond, the co-founder of Big Frame, which got its origins from Cloud Media, right? Sarah Penna:Exactly, through a mutual friend. I was on the hunt for a CEO. I recognized my limitations. I did want to raise money. I didn't know what that entailed. Frankly, I needed more of a grownup. I think my skillsets were really great on the creator side and the brand deal side but as the industry started growing up, I very quickly recognized I need someone who has a skillset that I just don't have. So, I met Steve and we hit it off, and we had a couple meetings, and he just jumped right on in. We decided to re-found the company. None of us liked the name because people thought it was like cloud computing and, which is fair, and it just made sense to start fresh. It also gave us an opportunity to have contracts with people and just structure it in a way that would allow us to raise money. So, yeah. Chris Erwin:Hey, listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of The Come Up. I have a quick ask for you. If you dig what we're putting down, if you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show. It helps other people discover our work and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview. I have to ask, I started the advisory firm five years ago that I have now. I started that with a co-founder and then quickly realized, "Hey, I have a certain vision and I'm going to build this in my unique way." So, restarted the advisory firm with me as the solo owner. Chris Erwin:I've realized bringing someone else into the mix that really gets the vision that I feel comfortable sharing this with is difficult for me. I just know my personality, and founder issues are always like the hardest things in any startup. How did you feel in terms of bringing Steve on? Did you feel comfortable? When you met him, you're like, "Hey, this guy gets it. We have shared values and sensibility." Were you able to develop a sense of trust with him pretty quickly or did that take a decent amount of time? Sarah Penna:I trusted him very quickly. Although, I sometimes felt like that scene in The Little Mermaid where she's like, closes her eyes and signs her voice away, I was like, "Am I doing that?" I definitely had that moment where I was like, "Am I letting somebody in I don't ... ?" We had three meetings before. I was like, "Here's a third of my company." We had another co-founder, that's it. We don't need to [inaudible 00:25:56] but basically, here's half of my company. I definitely had people who were like, "Don't think you should have done that." But to me, the value of Steve and the ability ... I did trust him. The main thing for him was, he was very clear that he didn't want to disrupt what I was doing. He was very impressed with the business that I had built on my own and he didn't want me to feel like he was coming in to change that. Sarah Penna:He invested some of his own money and valued the contracts that ... I was like, I don't have that money to invest, but he was like, we should value the money that's in the bank for Cloud Media and the value of the contracts or the agreements that you have with the talent. So, I was like, "Okay, that's really fair." He made it easy. That, for me, was important. I don't like complicated things. I don't like long dragged out negotiations, and I was ready to just get to work. So, he was someone who was like, "I know how to do this. I have the connections. I don't want to disrupt your work." He's a good guy, I could just tell, and we made it work. Chris Erwin:I love that. I know Steve very well. He was my boss for three or four years and learned an incredible amount from him. But I think you're right, Sarah, the thing that stands out about Steve was just a good guy, good moral compass, and he doesn't let great get in the way of good enough. He'll just say, "This is good. This is thoughtful. We've talked this through. Let's move forward." But like you said, he's very fair in how he wanted to value the company. I didn't know that, but it's totally on brand for him. So, curious, I joined in the summer of 2012, I was ... Sarah Penna:Oh, boy, what a summer that was. Chris Erwin:So, I went to business school after being a Wall Street banker for a few years. Then, I was in school in Chicago and I worked while I was there for Pritzker Capital, which was an early investor in the YouTube MCN ecosystem. They had invested in Big Frame. They invested in Awesomeness. We eventually joined forces, and that is how I met Steve first. I was talking to Rishi, Rishi or Matt McCall and they're like, "Yeah, when you fly out to LA for these meetings, we invested in this company called Big Frame. You should check them out." I was like, "I don't even understand this company's business model, but digital video that feels like the future. I'll take a meeting." Chris Erwin:I remember meeting Steve and we had lunch on the Promenade, and then I came in for my first interview. I walked into the office, this is on Sunset Boulevard in the old National Lampoon building. I walked in and I walked into a ... it feels like we were just working out of someone's semi-living/work space. I was like, is this a company? Is this like what West Coast work is like? Because I had grown up working on the East Coast. I walked into the back room and in the back room there's this little circular table. Steve's there. Grant Gibson's there. Jason [Szymanski 00:28:39] is there. Then, you're at your back desk. Chris Erwin:So, you're supposed to be part of this interview, your head's down on your computer. They're like, "Oh, that's Sarah over there." I looked over and I'm like, "Oh, I guess this is what founders do in digital media. They're just heads down in their computers. Maybe I'll eventually talk to her over time." That was my first introduction to Big Frame. So, I just say all of this as I was like, this is like a precursor to just wildness that ensued thereafter. We had just gotten the Google Original Channels funding, raised some venture funding on top of that, and then it was like, build these five different content verticals. I'm curious to hear from you, there are so many memories from back in the day, but as you think about some of the war stories from the trenches, what are some things that stand out? Sarah Penna:Oh, my God. Well, your interview definitely. Also, you failed to mention that we had two absolutely crazy wiener dogs running around the office as well. Yeah. I think we had outgrown the office. We were in the National Lampoon office. It was so janky and we ... eventually, we're on three different floors. We moved sales to an office down Sunset. We were sandwiched between a strip club and a Trader Joe's. Then, Joe and I were renting a house off of Sunset, like walking distance, and eventually, we moved the talent team to my dining room table. Joe at that time was putting two YouTube videos a week out on his MysteryGuitarMan channel, and he would stay up all night and then he would sleep until 2:00 PM and he'd come downstairs. Sarah Penna:It was like, Lisa, Byron, Megan, Rachel were at our dining room table, and Joe was rolling out of bed as one of our talent but also my husband. I would cook dinner for the talent team at my house. We would take talent meetings in my living room, which was just so bizarre and unprofessional, but worked. We would also throw these wild game nights, board game nights, so Settlers of Catan was very popular at that time. We would have 40 YouTubers in our house playing Settlers of Catan with multiple games going on. My house was like a YouTuber hotel. We had a guest bedroom. Jenna Marbles came and stayed. Lena came and stayed with us. DeStorm. It was very wholesome and very duct tape and bubble gum feeling. We were just kind of figuring it out. Chris Erwin:I remember that. I remember Steve explaining, "Oh, we're having a reorg." The reorg was like, "Okay, we're moving the talent team to Sarah's house across the street." Then, production goes upstairs into a semi-new office that we got. For us, at that size, that was like a big deal. Sarah Penna:It was. Yeah. Oh, man, when we moved to our Lindblade offices, was that like heaven on earth to have an actual office, but that was later. Another funny memory I had was when Max first started. He had come from a place where he was doing really, really big deals. I handed him off a brand deal opportunity for $1,500 and he went in the bathroom, which by the way was right next to everybody's desk and splashed cold water on his face. We had moved him from New York to LA and he was just like, "What am I doing?" Ultimately, Max, obviously, was an absolute rockstar and built out that sales team to just be very profitable and doing really well. Sarah Penna:But that first deal was $1,500, and that was just par for the course at that time. It was shocking to people coming from the outside and then once it clicked, it really clicked and you're like, "Okay, I get what we're doing here." But there was just a lot of duct tape and bubble gum. Chris Erwin:I think Max is going to be an interview on this podcast coming up. I have interviewed Dan Levitt. When I think of Dan, we talk about when I first interviewed him and I think he showed up in some shiny suit and Jason Szymanski in the back office is pointing. He's like, "Chris, we're launching a music vertical and we have a new interview candidate coming in." I would just look out the window and I would be like, "These characters." I was like, "I've never worked with any characters like this before." I come from Wall Street, so it's was like everyone's in a suit and tie. I see people coming in shiny suits and I'm just like, "I think this is the new world I'm in. I'm just going to roll with it." Chris Erwin:So, it was such a rollercoaster of fun. So, then exciting things are happening and eventually, we move into this big new office, I think on Lindblade in Culver City. We're closer to Maker. We're closer to Fullscreen. Then, we run a process to sell the company. I'm just curious to hear from you, Sarah. Bringing Steve on was probably like, that was a big decision for you, but then hiring an investment bank that's going to run a sales process, we're going to have new ownership and potential leadership. What was it like for you to make that decision? Sarah Penna:That was really hard. I just wanted to keep the party going. Like many young entrepreneurs, I think I tied my identity completely to this company. And my husband was in the next office, he was a client. We went home, we would talk about brand deals over dinner. My entire identity was Big Frame. All of my friends were in some way, shape or form involved in this company. My family would tease me when I'd go home for Christmas. They're like, "Are all of your friends under contract?" I was like, "Yeah, kind of." Chris Erwin:Maybe a nice way to go through life. Sarah Penna:Yeah. I mean, we know where we stand with each other. No, but I just, I was so immersed that the idea of losing control was hard. I think I also felt my limitations as a founder and that's hard to come up against when you're kind of, I don't want to say that I was arrogant, but I was really confident and I felt really good about how I was running things and running the company. Then, we got to a point where my limitations and our limitations became evident and that's hard. It was hard and it was also exciting because it is, under most circumstances, it's a great thing. I also just had never been through anything like that, so I let a lot of anxiety get to me. Sarah Penna:I let it completely consume me. I'll be totally transparent. I would cry on the bathroom floor, like, what am I doing? There was a lot of doubt. I think that was probably the biggest strain on Steve and I's relationship, is how to go about this and how to present in the room. That was a big source of stress for us. Who's going to present? Is it me? I've been out there kind of the face of the company. I've been doing all the panels, and the VidCons, and the press, and the creator. Or is it Steve, who is the CEO who, frankly, should be doing it? Chris Erwin:That was unclear. We brought in an executive coach to help us figure that out. Sarah Penna:We did. Ultimately, like many of these things, it just came about through relationships and less about going and pitching, and the relationship that I had kind of built and cultivated, and changing landscape. There were a lot of factors, but that was very stressful. Then, in New Year's Eve of 2013, while we were in the middle of this process, I found out I was pregnant. Chris Erwin:Just to pile it on. Sarah Penna:Just for fun. Thought that would be a great thing to add on to the plate at the time. It's so funny because I think back a lot to the moment where I told Steve that I was pregnant, I was hysterical. I couldn't even tell him. I was crying so hard. He was like, in a very nice way, "I don't understand why you're so upset. This is a good thing." I was like, "What?" I thought he was going to be so mad and that this was going to ruin everything. I tell that story only to say, I think that our culture makes young women feel like ... and I had a lot of people tell me, then opened up to me over the years, that they felt like they can't have kids because of ... that moment of, "Oh, my gosh, I have to now disclose this thing." Sarah Penna:Even if it's illegal to not move forward with something because someone's pregnant, you can still find other ways. So, I thought I had completely ruined everything and that was ... I'm very sad about that looking back, but Steve really was like, "This is awesome. I'm so happy for you. Don't even think about it. Nobody's going to bat an eye." That was true. I wound up giving a keynote at VidCon eight months pregnant and we sold the company, but that was very stressful. Also, I couldn't drink. It was a lot. We were celebrating and I was like, "You know what? I'm having a glass of champagne because I'm ... You all have been drinking through this very stressful process and I haven't." Chris Erwin:More like being pregnant was also a launching pad for you to launch the mom's vertical at Awesomeness- Sarah Penna:Yes. Chris Erwin:... which came thereafter but, yeah, just to add some context on some of the notes here. I remember in the MCN days, there was the early Awesomeness launch in 2011 and then it was sold to DreamWorks, I think, in 2012, and everyone got really excited. But then, the YouTube MCN winter hit and there was a lack of capital flowing into the space. People were saying like, "Are these businesses real? Are they viable? Are they just going to get consolidated into traditional media?" It was harder to raise capital, and there was a lot of doubt in the ecosystem. Then, in 2013, I think in the second half of the year, Disney bought Maker for $500 million. Then, we made a decision, we're like, "There's a moment in time here, let's hire an investment banker." Shout out to Brian Stengel. Sarah Penna:Yay, Brian. Chris Erwin:We kicked off a process in the second half of 2013 and sold in April of 2014 to AwesomenessTV. Look, I was very intimately involved in that process with you and Steve. I saw how hard it was on you guys. You guys were just carrying an incredible burden. I think something, too, like a theme of your career, Sarah, where you have this passion for overlooked communities. I think you getting into the digital fears, there's a way to service these new creator voices in an exciting way with new business models and new distribution models. I bet there was some fear of ... A lot of this business was your friends and your friends actually had equity in the company. Chris Erwin:You had given equity out to a lot of creators when you launched Cloud Media and Big Frame. What if all that was going to change with this new ownership? I think that was probably a moment that you were concerned about. I don't know if we'll ever make all these details public, but the sales process, I just remember like one week it would be super exciting. We're flying to New York for this big meeting with a traditional publisher. Conversations are going really well and then they completely flat lined and go nowhere. Then, the next week, it's like really exciting, but eventually got to a great result. Sarah Penna:At three in the morning, while we were all still at the Big Frame offices collapsed on the floor. Yes. Chris Erwin:We end up selling to AwesomenessTV. I think that was a very exciting experience for all of us. I think Awesomeness was, in a way, they were the Goldman Sachs of the YouTuber economy back then. They built an incredible team and network, and I think we all really learned a lot from Brian Robbins and Joe Davola. Just amazing creative visionaries. You also launched a mom's vertical while you're there with Snooki and JWoww, you do the corporate thing for, I think, two to three years then it's okay, what are you going to do next? I think that you start seeing another underserved community, which is the romance community, and you think about launching a company there. So, what's that quick story? Sarah Penna:While I was running the mom's vertical, which as you said, I think my big passion in life is finding underserved communities and overlooked communities and creating content around them. I felt at that time that the content that was out there for moms was just not great and it was a huge market. So, Brian had brought on a woman named Lisa Berger who comes from E! and has had a very long traditional media career. He brought her on to do the Go90 programming and the YouTube programming for the Awestruck, which is the mom's vertical. We hit it off and we have a great time together running this crazy thing, and we wind up optioning a romance novel and turning it into a series for Go90. Sarah Penna:Very, very, very long story short, we crashed Go90 because of how popular it was, despite everyone telling us it wasn't going to work. I'm a huge reader and I love romance. I was looking out at the landscape and saying, "You know what? I think romance is going to have a moment, like what Marvel did for geek culture, where now it's cool to be a geek." I think we're at this point, this is 2017. Trump is in office. Women are pissed off. We're sick of all of the stuff that we're like being disparaged. We're sick of all of the female characters in popular shows being killed off or assaulted or whatever. We just want happily ever afters. Everyone's disparaging this romance community as just sad cat ladies, single cat ladies eating bonbons. Sarah Penna:I was like, "We're going to go prove them wrong. Fuck this." Similar to the early days of YouTube, where I saw these influencers have a chip on their shoulder where, "Oh, you just think I am a single dude making videos in my mom's basement." There was a similar misconception about the romance novel fandom. The romance novel fandom is actually incredibly educated, diverse, not just in who they are, but where they live and their socioeconomic status. They're incredibly feminist and they know that it's fun and cheesy. They know that there's a wink and a nod. We set out to create a space to celebrate that, not make fun of it, not disparage it. Sarah Penna:It's a fascinating culture, a fascinating community. I was not part of it in the sense of participating in the fandom, but I've been a long time romance novel reader and I was in the closet about it because I was embarrassed. So, we banished the term guilty pleasure because we don't want anyone to feel guilty about reading romance. So, we set out and we created a digital platform and a newsletter, and then started optioning novels to turn into movies and TV shows. We got a first look deal with CBS. We have a deal with Audible and we have a deal with iHeartRadio. Our daily podcast is going to launch in February. So, really set out to just create a space where people who actually know and love romance are creating the content. Chris Erwin:I love that, Sarah. It's also very interesting, when you came to me and I was like, "Sarah, what are you thinking about? What's up next?" You told me about the romance community. I did a double take and I paused because I'm like, "Wait, this is such a huge community." I think in traditional media, think of all the rom-com movies, but nothing in digital. I'm like, "Yeah, this is totally overlooked. Why is no one else talking about this? This is huge." I think it's very interesting how you characterize it as ... yeah, often when I say, even to this day, "I'm going to watch a rom-com." I'm embarrassed as just an older male saying that, but why? Why do we say it's a guilty pleasure? Chris Erwin:Why is there any guilt about a really fun love story? When love is one of the number one drivers of happiness and a common theme that all of us talk about around the dinner table and with our friends. Sarah Penna:Why is being a horror fan, seeing people get murdered, why is that not looked down upon, but seeing people be happy is? Very interesting. Chris Erwin:Very interesting points about the romance community. So, you are at Patreon now. Are you still co-running Frolic? What is happening with Frolic Media? Sarah Penna:Yeah. So, Lisa has taken over and is helming Frolic. I continue to be a strategic advisor and obviously, care very deeply about the future of where that company goes, and cheerleading and championing them from the position that I am in now. Chris Erwin:I think it's a very exciting space. We interviewed Naomi Shah, the founder of Meet Cute on this podcast as well, which does these, call it like rom-com microcast. I started listening to those over the past six months and I absolutely love them. Bite-sized nuggets of just rom-com joy in audio form. So, I believe in it. Pay attention to RockWater's 2021 predictions about underserved communities because I think this could be ... potentially, we will publish this likely in the end of January. It could be a good cover note that you're sending to any potential investors or partners for you. Sarah Penna:Absolutely. Thank you. Chris Erwin:Believe in the thesis. Okay. So, before talking about Patreon, I just want to talk about another concurrent journey within your family in the media space, which is your husband, Joe. He's been a creator for over a decade. I think in the past few years, he was digital native on YouTube doing incredible stop motion biography, but always wanted to cross over. I think he's realized some incredible success recently. Why don't you tell us about that? Sarah Penna:Joe is just, I obviously am biased, but he has an incredible creative mind. He's good at everything he does, which is so annoying, but I love him for it. He is good at languages, and art, and music, and math, and all of that really combined and you can see that reflected in the fun, playful nature of MysteryGuitarMan. But like you said, ultimately, he really wanted to direct movies. When he first started down the journey, there was a trend of these influencer-helmed, one to two million dollar movies that would be VOD and make back their money. You'd put the how many subscribers that YouTuber had and how much we were going to sell it for, and set download on iTunes, and that was where his agency and his management team was kind of pushing him to. Sarah Penna:He said, "You know what? That's not really the path that I'm going to take," and wrote a movie called Arctic, which is a mostly silent movie helmed by a 50-something-year old Danish actor named Mads Mikkelsen. So, quite the opposite of an influencer-helmed comedy. Joe willed that movie into existence. There was every hurdle against him. He had to start from the bottom. His YouTube channel didn't help him because he wasn't doing an extension of MysteryGuitarMan. He didn't want to be in front of the camera and he did it, and that movie got into Cannes. We went to Cannes, and it premiered and got a 10-minute standing ovation. Chris Erwin:Whoa, I did not know that. A 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes? Sarah Penna:Yeah. Chris Erwin:Good for you guys. Sarah Penna:So, that was just ... walking that famous red carpet, and for me, it was wonderful because I ... He had finally gotten traditional management. I was no longer managing him. So, I actually got to go to Cannes just as his wife, as his plus one. I was not worrying about logistics and getting him to his interviews on time. I still was but I wasn't [crosstalk 00:47:45]. Chris Erwin:It takes a village to get Joe to an interview on time. Sarah Penna:Truly, especially in a foreign country. That's a whole other story. So, that was just a really incredible moment to see and he, off the heels of that, they announced at Cannes his next movie, which was called Stowaway, which had Anna Kendrick and Toni Collette, and Daniel Dae Kim, and Shamier Anderson in it. It premiered on Netflix last year. Now, he is working on so many new projects and so, hopefully we'll be shooting another one this year. He's loving it. He's very good at it. He has the personality to be a director. Very in control of his set, he's very calm, creative, collaborative and it's just very, very cool to see. You know what? He went through the grieving process of letting go of that YouTube channel and he's out on the other side and making things happen. Chris Erwin:That's awesome. I remember when we heard that news, there was a lot of text threads amongst the Big Frame community. I remember texting with Byron and with Max, and with Steve about, "Look, how awesome is this about Joe? Have you heard?" We know that he'd been working so hard and he was just such an incredible creator from day one. So, we're pumped for him and it feels like this is just the beginning for what he's going to do. Right? Sarah Penna:It really feels like he's on the trajectory, for sure. Chris Erwin:Yeah. So, look, you and Joe, as this media power couple continue to evolve. Speaking of the most recent step in your evolution, as we work to the final segment of this interview, Sarah, you guys moved to Santa Barbara, I think during the COVID pandemic. Then, you recently, someone that we've known mutually for a while, Avi Gandhi, you started talking to him at Patreon and saw an opportunity to join the creator team over there, which is your latest creator adventure. So, tell us about what excited you about moving to Santa Barbara and your new role at Patreon, and what you're doing over there. Sarah Penna:Yeah. So, I wanted to move to Santa Barbara for 10 years and it never was feasible or realistic, and I, like many people during the pandemic, had a very hard year. Living in LA just became very challenging. Jonah, my son, our son is, when the pandemic started was five, and now he's seven. We just felt if we were going to do it, it was now or never because he started having his best friends and it just becomes harder as they get older. So, we just pulled the ripcord and we did it with no plan, no idea if it was going to work out and it has been just an absolute dream come true. We love it up here and was fortunate enough to be able to join this incredible company, Patreon. Sarah Penna:I joined in November and like many things in my career, it just felt so right that I couldn't pass it up. A big driving factor was, obviously, it's very hard to leave my start-up and to leave Frolic. I did it in the best way I could, but for me, going to a place that really shares my values in that creator space, I started seeing the creator economy and the interest in it heating up in a way that I haven't seen in a long time. Similar to when I met Danny all those years ago, and I was like, "I need to be a part of this." I felt that the train was leaving the station without me and I wanted to get back into the creator space. Sarah Penna:I took a lot of time looking at what is the right company for me, for my values, and for what I want to do. Patreon is kind of a unicorn, a unicorn in the sense that it's valued at a unicorn status, but also a unicorn, for me, because it hit this very narrow target of what I was looking for. Chris Erwin:Just remind me, how long has Patreon been around for? Because I remember Patreon, early days of when I started Big Frame in 2012. Is that right? Sarah Penna:Yeah, eight years. Chris Erwin:So, now at Patreon, what team are you running there and what are you focused on for 2022? Sarah Penna:I live on the creator partnerships team and I run a team called Launch. We are responsible for giving creators white glove experience for launching their Patreon pages. We have teams that are going out and sourcing those creators. Once they come to us, they are pretty excited about the platform and we help them figure out what tiers are best for them, what banner image is going to look good, and really help them drive towards their launch date. These are creators that range in all kinds of sizes and all kinds of ... I'm talking to someone who makes leather, like leather wallets and leather goods, and we're talking to big YouTube creators and celebrities, and we're talking to everybody in between. Sarah Penna:It's just a really exciting time to be at a company like Patreon that's been in the creator space for so long, is helmed by a creator, and is going to continue to be a real player in the creator economy as it goes forward. Chris Erwin:It seems that there's incredible traction for your business where I think there was a recent announcement. The team is currently 400, but you're doubling the company to 800 people this year. Is that right? Sarah Penna:Yes, that's what they say. Chris Erwin:Well, look, I think the market tailwinds are definitely behind them. I think, yeah, it's a really exciting evolution. We've written about this extensively at RockWater. YouTube created these new business models for creators, where they can publish content online and then participate in ad revenue through YouTube's AdSense program. Then, the chance to distribute content to other social platforms and participate in ad revenue there and then doing talent deals, brand integrations, and getting paid off platform. Then now, I think there's this incredible movement with all these creators, the audiences that they bring, the fandoms that they generate, the engagement that they generate on these platforms, they're the real moneymakers. Chris Erwin:So, how do you give them more tools though, to also not only build these platform businesses, but their own businesses? So, Patreon doing that, allowing them to have direct relationships with their fans, get access to contact information, monetize in different ways behind a paywall, different types of subscription content, whether it's video or audio, whatever else. I think what you guys are doing is a beautiful thing. We need more companies thinking like you. So, I think that you guys are really well set up for success, and I'm excited, Sarah, for the different communities of creators that you guys can represent, that have a need, that don't have the tools from other platforms that are overlooked right now yet, again, going back to what you do best. Sarah Penna:Thank you. I absolutely agree with all of that. I have said for years, as some people, not many, but a lot of people in the creator space, you need to own your audience. Renting your audience is not sustainable. You need to build community. You need to not just be on a conveyor belt of content, You really need, as a creator in this space, the tools are there for you to build a sustainable business and to not be tied to the whims of platforms and algorithms. There's a big conversation about creator burnout. Patreon is positioned to help creators solve some of these big issues, big and, by the way, nuanced issues. It's not just, oh, these platforms are bad and we are good at all. Sarah Penna:These platforms are great and you need to build up audiences on your podcast and on your social. If you are able to have ... I'm a really big a fan of Seth Godin's 1,000 true fans idea. If you can build out 1,000 true fans who are on your Patreon, you might be covering your rent. You might be covering your rent plus plus, and you might be making a really good living. That's what we want. We want to empower creators and we're really set up to do that. It's just an exciting time to join the company. Chris Erwin:Before we wrap this up with the closing rapid fire round, Sarah, I just got to give you some big kudos here. You legitimately changed my life. I'm trying not to become emotional here. I look back on my past career over the past 10 years and everything that I've done, being able to found RockWater is a function of you, starting Cloud Media and Big Frame, and then taking a chance on me. I had a very different background than someone that you had ever typically hired before. I'm sure that you needed some convincing from the rest of your leadership team. Chris Erwin:But what I have learned with you, the pedigree that I've gained and the experience has not only been so personally transformational, all these new relationships that I've built, women that I've dated and just incredible friendships and all of the above, it's really set up an exciting career for me. Something that I wake up to, excited to do every day. I see a lot of incredible potential going forward. It's a function of you taking a chance on me and getting early into the digital video MCN days. So, I am very, very thankful. I think there's many people that have very similar sentiments to what I just shared. Chris Erwin:So, I'm probably speaking on behalf of many. So, big kudos to you, and particularly to call out, I don't come from a creative background. When I came in and was very systematic and operational, I wanted to scale the business, it took me a while. But seeing how you ran the creative team, how you nurtured the culture, when you brought in Rachel and Megan Corbett, and Lisa Filipelli, and Byron, and people that I spent a lot of time with and really learned an incredible amount from, it really all stems from you. So, Sarah, you have been an incredible person in my life. You did incredible things for all the talent at Big Frame. Chris Erwin:You are now doing the game again, with Frolic and with Patreon, and I wish you the best. As you know, anytime that you need anything, sometimes we don't talk for six months or a year, but when we do, we pick up very, very quickly. I am a massive supporter of everything that you do. So, call me whenever you have a need. Sarah Penna:Thank you. Now I'm crying. Thank you so much, Chris. That means a lot to me. Chris Erwin:Very well-deserved. Okay. So, now, let's move into closing rapid fire. Six questions. The rules are, you can answer in one sentence or in one to two words. Do you understand the rules? Sarah Penna:Yes. Chris Erwin:Okay. Here we go. Proudest life moment? Sarah Penna:Having my son Jonah. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do less of in 2022? Sarah Penna:Less complicated. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do more of? Sarah Penna:More space in my schedule. Chris Erwin:I like that. Advice for media execs going into 2022? Sarah Penna:Don't believe all of the hype and just keep your eye on the ball. Chris Erwin:Any future start-up ambitions, Miss Entrepreneur? Sarah Penna:God, I hope not. No, not as of right now. I am very happy not running a company right now. Chris Erwin:Not necessarily off the table. That's basically what you're saying. Sarah Penna:It's never off the table with me. Chris Erwin:Last one. This is an easy one. How can people get in contact with you? Sarah Penna:Sarah@patreon.com. Chris Erwin:Very easy. All right, Sarah, this was a true delight. Thanks for being on the podcast. Sarah Penna:Thank you so much, Chris. This was so much fun for me, too. Chris Erwin:Wow. That interview with Sarah just flew by. I felt like there were so many more things that we could have discussed. We'll have to do another podcast together. Yeah, I admit I got a little teary-eyed at the end there just going down memory lane with her. She was really formative in my career and, yeah, that really hit me at the end. I was not expecting that. All right. So, a few quick things. Our Livestream Commerce executive dinner is coming up. The date is now March 10th. We are 98% close to confirming that with our sponsor. But if you're interested in attending, shoot us a note. You can reach us at hello@wearerockwater.com. Chris Erwin:Also, we are hiring. We're looking for interns, undergrad and MBA level, and also a full-time analyst. We are growing all things creator economy and we need help. If you're interested, you can apply at jobs@wearerockwater.com. Lastly, we love to hear from our listeners. If you have any feedback on the show, any ideas for guests, just reach out to us. We're at tcupod@wearerockwater.com. All right, that's it, everybody. Thanks for listening. The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of Rockwater Industries. Chris Erwin:Please rate and review this show on Apple podcast and remember to subscribe wherever you listen to our show. If you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter and you could follow us on Twitter @TCUpod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. Special thanks to Alex Zirin and Eric Kenigsberg from the RockWater team.
Starting January 16, join Owen Holt for the latest gossip on your favorite AwesomenessTV shows and cast members. The Vibe Room is coming from YouTube straight to your ears — Tea will be spilled on TikTok stars, content creators, and everything that happens behind the scenes. Hear new episodes of Vibe Room every Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Starting January 16, join Owen Holt for the latest gossip on your favorite AwesomenessTV shows and cast members. The Vibe Room is coming from YouTube straight to your ears — Tea will be spilled on TikTok stars, content creators, and everything that happens behind the scenes. Hear new episodes of Vibe Room every Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this week's episode, we interview actress, producer, writer, and host Lauren Elyse Buckley. Best known for her recurring role in Dreamworks' AwesomenessTV comedy series "Foursome" as the recurring role of Girsten throughout all four seasons, she can also be seen on Netflix's "Bill Nye Saves the World", on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," recurring on TruTV's "You Can Do Better", and Netflix's upcoming "Colin In Black & White". She has two highly anticipated films set for release in fall 2021, "Blame" and "Hyde Out".We talk about how her childhood in dance impacted the way she viewed her body, how she has navigated body pressures in Hollywood after recovering from an eating disorder, and how she continues to honor her body and empower women on the big screen. You can follow her on social @laurenelysebuckley.If you like the show, be sure to subscribe and review, and follow us on social @bodiesinmotionpod. And if you or someone you know would like to sponsor the pod, shoot us an email at bodiesinmotionpod@gmail.com.
Resource Links: Your Social Voice Website (https://www.yoursocialvoice.com.au/) Become the Mogul of your industry (https://www.mogulcall.com) Join our Mogul Mastermind (https://www.mogulmastermind.com.au/) SkillBank Website (https://www.joinskillbank.com/) SkillBank Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joinskillbank) SkillBank Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/joinskillbank/?hl=en) SkillBank Twitter (https://twitter.com/joinskillbank) Did you find your knowledge already outdated after graduating from university? Business works faster nowadays. Change is happening sooner rather than later. With this, we're seeing recent graduates who join the workforce lack the skills needed. To combat that, one young and savvy entrepreneur provided the solution. SkillBank's CEO Mehak Vohra is helping people get jobs in marketing by skilling them up to get them to land the job. Find out how SkillBank is cutting through the noise to get people into a revitalising industry. Tune in now. What we discussed in this episode: What Mehak does [01:38] The biggest hurdles facing people getting into the industry [02:03] What companies are looking for [02:53] Who is SkillBank for [03:45] How SkillBank works [06:35] A cool story about how SkillBank helped someone level up [07:38] What inspired Mehak to start SkillBank [08:29] Hurdles Mehak faced in building and scaling her company [11:13] The first roles she hired for [13:06] Her vision for the next 5-10 years [13:41] What has changed in the last 18 months [14:31] What's lacking in university education [15:32] Mehak's reason for doing what she does [17:09] About Mehak Vohra Mehak is the founder of SkillBank. SkillBank is helping train the next generation of marketers through their online program. Through their free upfront cohort package, students only pay them after they graduate and if they get a job paying $40K or more. Mehak is a 2017 Thiel Fellowship Finalist, and she has been featured on ABC, Forbes, Adweek, AwesomenessTV, and Huffington Post as a consultant for personal branding, Gen Z, and B2B growth marketing. Connect with Mehak through her Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. Thank you so much for listening! If you liked this episode, please don't forget to subscribe, tune in, and share this podcast. Connect with The Kim Barrett Show: Subscribe on Youtube Follow Us on Facebook See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Christopher Erwin is the Founder of RockWater Industries, a strategic growth advisory firm for next-generation consumer brands. Chris started his career in finance and M&A before going to business school and transitioning into media and entertainment. Prior to RockWater, he served as the COO of Big Frame before and after the digital talent agency’s acquisition by AwesomenessTV. Chris is also the creator and host of The Come Up, a podcast featuring untold stories from entrepreneurs and leaders. In this episode, Chris and I discuss the ever-increasing value of sports media rights, opportunities to personalize live entertainment experiences, and how sports betting companies are getting into the media game. Chris also shares his enthusiasm for live stream shopping – pointing to leading indicators from Asia and highlighting the key differences in Western markets. Finally, we debate the future of the social audio space and argue that all brands must ultimately become content companies. Host: James Creech LEAVE US A REVIEW! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review! https://ratethispodcast.com/allthingsvideo LISTENER SUPPORT If you’d like to make a small monthly donation to help support future episodes, please visit https://anchor.fm/allthingsvideopodcast/support ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading media companies and engage in thought-provoking debates about the issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital media. Follow All Things Video on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Measure Studio (next-gen social media analytics) and Paladin (the essential influencer marketing platform).
Veronica and Vanessa Merrell are back to give you all the behind-the-scenes tea from their hit AwesomenessTV dating competition show, Twin My Heart, starring TikTok star, Nate Wyatt. Tune in to Spotify for the podcast premiere on Saturday, April 3 at 7am PST. → Talent Credits ← Host and Executive Producer: Vanessa Merrell Host and Executive Producer: Veronica Merrell Executive Producer: Paul Merrell Supervising Producer: Katherine Martinez Producer: Taylor Henriquez Editor: Darby Wilson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Your one-stop-shop for pop culture news is here!! AwesomenessTV’s Daily Report is now available on the go, Monday-Friday at 3pm PST! Listen today at spoti.fi/DailyReportATV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On this episode of "Love Talk Live," I interview actress, Lauren Elyse Buckley. Lauren is best known for her recurring role in Dreamworks' AwesomenessTV comedy series "Foursome" as the recurring role of Girsten throughout all four seasons. She can also be seen on Netflix's "Bill Nye Saves the World" opposite Jillian Bell, on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and recurring on TruTV's "You Can Do Better." Lauren dives into sharing with the audience her dating journey tips and tricks. She reveals what she discovered as being the one thing that has helped her the most in manifesting love. Lauren is full of energy and positive vibes. This episode is guaranteed to brighten your day, and set you on your way to a better dating journey and ultimately finding your "person."
Your one-stop-shop for pop culture news. AwesomenessTV's Daily Report is now available on the go, Monday-Friday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tell us what you like or dislike about this episode!! Be honest, we don't bite!Oli White is an English YouTuber, actor and author. In August 2012, he began posting videos on the YouTube channel Oli White. As of April 2021, his channel has over 470 million views and over 2.7 million subscribers. In 2014, he performed the role of James in the AwesomenessTV web series production of Shipping Julia. In November 2015, he acted in Joe and Caspar Hit The Road with Joe Sugg and Caspar Lee. In May 2016, he released his first book, Generation Next and his second book, Generation Next: The Takeover was released in 2017—Thanks for watching!SUBSCRIBE NOW FOR MORE TIPS—WebsiteInstagramTik TokFacebookTwitterLinkedIn—LISTEN TO THE PODCAST!SpotifyApple—Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS TrailerAs an entrepreneur, investor, funding expert and mentor who has been building and growing businesses for both myself and my clients for more than 20 years, my fundamental principles are suitable for all industries and businesses of all stages and size.I'm constantly involved in funding and advising multiple business ventures and successful entrepreneurs.My goal is to help YOU achieve YOUR financial success! I know how to spot and nurture great business opportunities and as someone who has ‘been there and got the t-shirt' many times, overall strategies and advice are honest, tangible and grounded in reality.
Chas Lacaillade is the founder and CEO of Bottle Rocket Management. Chas took a big bet on the digital video revolution, and now builds businesses for some of the most exciting creative talent from New Hollywood. We discuss why he left a prestigious talent agency to sell water pumps, Louisiana roadtrips, and how he converted a $5,000 bank loan into a multi-million dollar business. Full episode transcript is below. Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPTChris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Chas Lacaillade:I had my Jerry Maguire moment where I called all my clients and said, "Am I your manager? Am I your manager? And if so, this is my new endeavor, I'm going out on my own." It was terrifying. I took out a $5,000 loan from Chase Bank to live, and there was no interest for the first 18 months. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Chas Lacaillade. Chas took a big bet on the digital video revolution, and now he builds businesses for some of the most exciting creative talent from New Hollywood. Yet Chas's career has a lot of twists and turns, and includes a lot of early disillusionment to be honest, like when he left a prestigious Hollywood talent agency to sell water pumps. But Chas's ambition eventually pays off. A Louisiana road-trip inspires a new career and soon after he turns a $5,000 bank loan into a multi-million dollar business. So Chas is a close friend of mine, and he's known for telling you like it is. It makes for fun listening. All right, let's get into it. Chris Erwin:Quick heads up, that my interview with Chas was recorded back in December and prior to COVID. Chas, welcome to the podcast. Chas Lacaillade:Great being here. Chris Erwin:Before we go through your entire entertainment story which is an impressive one, let's talk about some of your early days. Where did you grow up? Chas Lacaillade:I grew up in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood in Chicago which is very picturesque, very walkable. I attended schools in the neighborhood. All my friends lived in the neighborhood and it was great. I just had a really magical childhood, to be honest. I walked through Lincoln Park to my school, on winter days I'd walk through this enchanting, snow-covered park back home from school, and I'd have lots of time to review what I'd experienced that day, and what was going on in my life, and what I wanted to do. And I think that meditative time was really helpful for me in getting in tune with my thoughts because your teenage years are so frantic, and there's so much insecurity. You know, it took me about 40 minutes to get home probably, or between 30 and 40 minutes to walk home from school, and so- Chris Erwin:"Up hill both ways-" Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... as my father used to say. He was also from Chicago- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... which was considered a pretty flat neighborhood overall. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, and dodging crossfire from enemy combatants. And so, just walking home gave me some contemplative time, it was very therapeutic, that probably a lot of kids don't get. Chris Erwin:So in these meditative moments, were you thinking about your future career and that you were planning to start something, or was it more of like the whimsical child fantasies and fun back in the day? Chas Lacaillade:Well, I was a big reader as a child, so I read a lot of fiction and nonfiction, and I consumed a lot of biographies from basically, the age I could start reading. And biographies on a really wide range of people. So I remember when I was 12, reading Muhammad Ali's biography, and then Ayatollah Khomeini's biography. Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:Just a real span of people because I was interested in a lot of different points of view, and the more I became exposed to what was out there and the different ways to obtain leadership, and fame, and infamy, and repute, and accomplishment, the more I became fascinated with what was possible if you just created a path for yourself. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Chas Lacaillade:And so, a lot of my thoughts were dedicated just to reviewing what these people who really impressed me, how they got to where they did. And how I could chart a path for myself that would employ my personal interests, that could hopefully some day lead to me being successful and known. Chris Erwin:Through many of our conversations over the years, there's a strong sense that you are highly ambitious, and that you really strive to overcome challenge. And I know that you often share with me, different biographical stories from magazines, something that you're reading in Esquire or GQ, or we will compare notes about Shackleton's journey to the Arctic. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Yeah. Chris Erwin:And I think these stories really resonate with you. I see this as a precursor to starting Bottle Rocket dating back 15, 20 years. Was there entrepreneurs in your family, your mother and father, siblings? Chas Lacaillade:Touching on what you were saying about these people that I've always been very impressed by, fortunately my parents exposed me to a lot of different ways of life. And I remember visiting William Randolph Hearst's mansion and just being so blown away by the scope of what this guy built, and how he lived, and his lifestyle, and the indoor pool and the outdoor pool. And all the art and architecture that he had imported from around the world, and how he'd customized this lifestyle. And so, I was so thrilled by that ambiance and the glamor of it. You know, how could I not be curious about how he provided this, and how he made this possible for himself? And so that lead me to familiarize myself with his accomplishments. And so once you know who somebody is and how they did it, and in this case he was very entrepreneurial, right? He created a newspaper empire and there's little he wouldn't do in order to achieve success. Chas Lacaillade:And so exposure to things like his mansion, or The Breakers in Rhode Island, and Providence, Rhode Island. I would go tour the Vanderbilt's mansions with my family in Rhode Island too. So just, I got exposure to these really impressive families. And my parents, my mother and father, would tell me how Cornelius Vanderbilt made his fortune, how he created a shipping empire. Or how Randolph Hearst created a newspaper empire. Chris Erwin:It's essentially made these stories accessible to you. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:They grounded them in saying, "These are normal people-" Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... "just like you and I, and so this is attainable if you have the spirit, and the intent, and drive to make it happen." Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:Is that like what you're processing of these stories and exposure? Chas Lacaillade:That's how I internalized it. It was also just like, "This is a pretty fascinating place. It's basically a museum, it's also a house. And it's indicative of a lifestyle that is pretty much bygone." And different people are going to take that in differently, but the way I interpreted the whole experience on all those occasions was like, "This is what's out there. If they did it, you can do it." Chris Erwin:I like that. Instead of looking at it and saying, "Oh, I can never achieve that," and then there's pangs of jealousy and frustration, it's, "Wow, if I hold myself big, there's incredible opportunity in front of me." Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:So let's fast forward. You find yourself in LA in 2006, and you're starting as an agent trainee at ICM Partners. So, what lead to the decision to join entertainment, overseeing and representing talent? Did you perceive it as, "This is the way to pursue your big ambitions"? Or, "Hey, this is just a key building block in learning, and I have a structured trajectory that I'm planning"? What was that thought process? Chas Lacaillade:Well, I'd always been really enamored with the world of entertainment, and Hollywood, music, they are areas that have fascinated me from a very young age. Consumed movies, and television, and music at a very high volume ever since I could remember, because I had an older brother and sister who could turn me on to different artists, and actors, and directors, and writers. So I felt like that was the path for me, and so basically I started my career out in an advertising agency in New York. Basically, I felt like I was spending a lot of time and effort at making a distraction and an impediment to what people really wanted, which was the TV show or the movie. I didn't want to make the advertisement before the movie, or the advertisement between blocks in the television show, I wanted to make the show or the movie. Chris Erwin:And just clarify for the listener, did you say that you worked in an ad agency in New York prior to ICM in LA? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. So my first job was at an ad agency that was called Euro Rscg, it's now known as Havas. It's like a worldwide advertising conglomerate. Then I worked on the Volvo and Charles Schwab accounts. I produced Volvo's first Super Bowl commercial, featuring Richard Branson. And I took a DVD of that and I sent it to the mail room basically, at ICM, and I got an interview and it worked out. Chris Erwin:And so you were at this precursor to Havas, for under a year? Chas Lacaillade:I was there for two years. Chris Erwin:So then you go to ICM- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... likely stars in your eyes, saying, "I don't want to just be the advertisement or the media spot, I want to help actually create the content." Chas Lacaillade:Oh yeah. You know, at ICM they wrapped Woody Allen, and Dr. Seuss estate, all these really luminaries like Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, really famous directors and screenwriters. And was I so impressed by the luminaries that were represented at ICM, and I thought, "This would be a great place for me to gain experience and learn the ropes of the entertainment business." And it was. Chris Erwin:So the experience was what you expected? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. You know, obviously you get a dose of reality. When you're young you don't know how hard it's going to be, and all the humbling moments that lie in store for you, and you want success much more quickly than it's likely to happen. And impatience can sometimes just frustrate how you're enjoying and processing things because you want more money, or you want more respect, or you want to be acknowledged, and truthfully, you're just another assistant, or you're just another guy fetching coffee. And you want to be seen as more than that, but until you prove yourself, you're not more than that. You are a means to an end. Chris Erwin:Something that is interesting about the agencies is that they attract ego, and I think it's something that they want. They want people coming in with confidence, with great ambition, yet at the same time there's a clear culture of, when you're there, you're in training mode, you have an incredible amount to learn. So you have to put that ego aside and say, "It's time to be a sponge." It's time to absorb from all these people that have been working for a lot longer than you have, so that you can then learn to be like, start to paint your own way. It seems like there's a unique duality there. Chas Lacaillade:I had a lot of ego and a lot of ambition, and I was humbled very quickly and- Chris Erwin:What was one of those humbling moments that you remember? Chas Lacaillade:I remember I had this really tyrannical boss, and there's no way I would've been able to accomplish what I did, subsequent to working at ICM, without his mentorship, but he used to tell me, "I'm your mentor and I'm your tormentor." Chris Erwin:That's funny. Chas Lacaillade:And he definitely did not go easy on the tormenting part. He'd tell me to do many things simultaneously, to the point where it was untenable. Like, he'd tell me to call a list of people, while composing letters to different clients, while scheduling his next lunch or his next dinner, and all of this stuff he would command me to do at that moment. At that moment. Which is physically impossible, but he didn't have any patience for any other alternative. And he also expected me to "be his brain." So he would be in the middle of conversations, he'd often have lapses of memory and he would snap his finger right before he began a sentence, which he was unsure if he could finish because he didn't know if he could remember the information. Chris Erwin:So, snapping his fingers is like an audio cue [crosstalk 00:11:12]? Chas Lacaillade:He'd snap at me hundreds of times throughout the day. Chris Erwin:No. Chas Lacaillade:So there's your first example of being humbled. He'd be on the phone with a client or a buyer at some studio and he would be embarking on this story, and he would snap at me and I would have to know what the next word in the sentence would be. Chris Erwin:You're expected to anticipate? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. And so he taught me anticipation. He made it crystal clear that if I couldn't anticipate his needs, then there's really no place for me working for him or at the company. You know, really top-tier client services anticipating what the talent is going to need, how the situation's going to present itself, how to navigate really difficult landscapes. And so, yes, it was self-serving for him because I was basically there to make him look good, but at the end of the day if you're a talent representative, you are there to make your talent look good. And so it was great training for that. Chris Erwin:I've heard a lot of the trainees and agents, sometimes they come from a place of fear about assuming the worst, so you always have to prevent or be in defensive mode. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:But I think the best agents, and this is also good business practice for anyone is, you can also assume the best, and be opportunistic and say, "What's around the corner? What are people not thinking about? What are people not wary of that can be incredibly exciting for my talent? Can be incredibly exciting for my business?" As well as, "What is a major threat? What is a risk?" And I think, again, having that duality's important versus those that just solely come at it from a place of fear. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Exactly. And those are the people that succeed and rise most quickly, are the people who don't adhere to just status quo, and there's very few of those people in any industry. I remember being at a meeting and somebody saying, "You know which client at William Morris generates the most revenue?" And everybody thought it was Quentin Tarantino or Bruce Willis, and the person who posed the question said, "Emeril Lagasse." And he said, "This chef was unknown to most of the world five years ago, become a complete juggernaut, and has got all these lines of revenue. And the person who discovered him from William Morris and who's been helping forge opportunities for him, they're booking more revenue for him than anybody else." Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:And that was an eye-opening moment for me, and that's something I really took close note of. And I thought to myself, "How can I go outside the confines of what everybody else is doing, and forge a path that will allow me to ascend higher?" I only had scant knowledge of him until that moment, and then of course first thing I did after that meeting was look him up. And then, "Who is my Emeril Lagasse? What is the avenue that's being unexplored right now?" And of course you're in a peer group that's incredibly ambitious, and incredibly intent on being successful, and oftentimes not generous with their expertise of information because any information that you get that is valuable, that diminishes their position and their value. And you're as valuable as what you know in that business. Chris Erwin:When you are entering markets where there is massive awareness about the opportunity, or where everyone is talking about it, there is less head room to grow into. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:I think there's less profit and revenue to be created. And so it's time to be contrarian. It's also time to say, "You know, what is maybe not popular?" Or, "What is a risky bet, but that I'm going to take with the right amount of risk profile and I'm going to go forth?" And I think it's people and leaders that have that mindset, they usually have the biggest winnings. Chas Lacaillade:Right. But then, a lot of Hollywood's very traditional. The irony is that it's where all this cutting-edge entertainment and expression is generated, but at the same time the leadership and the hierarchy doesn't always encourage asymmetric thinking. And so, in fact, most people are incredibly defensive and incredibly insecure, and are adverse to taking risks. So, the only way you're going to be successful is by taking risk, and the least likely way to be acknowledged is by being different, so it's a struggle. Chris Erwin:You were at ICM Partners for a few years and then you left, what was the reason for leaving ICM? Chas Lacaillade:You know, I basically got a point there where, the WGA strike of 2008 was really tough, and that stagnated wages and it slowed everything down in the entertainment industry, in terms of opportunity and promotions. And you get to a certain point where you're like, "What am I doing to do with my life? I don't want to be just another person walking the halls here, slowly inching my way forward." And the culture at that time, it was just like, "Everybody, do what they're told." You know, that's pervasive culture, regardless of where you are. After four years of grinding and playing by the rules that had been laid out, it felt like it was time to just explore a different way of life. Chris Erwin:So, explore a different way of life? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:So that seems to capture maybe a lot of things that happened over the next few years? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Yeah. So I'd always been very environmentally conscious, and really interested in sustainability and renewable energy, and I thought, "Maybe I'm not attaining the success I had always envisioned for myself at this stage in my life." Chris Erwin:Going back to the earlier part of our conversations where you're visiting the Hearst Castle- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... and learning about the Vanderbilts, and saying, "Wow, there's all this potential." Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:So you take a moment after a few years into our career, and you realize, "I don't have the success that I want." How did that feel? Chas Lacaillade:At that time I was 30 years old and I feel like if you're sane, you start to question yourself. I'm still a confident person, I'm still a very driven person, but I was beginning to wonder if my confidence and my drive were going to necessarily yield an impressive outcome, or any sort of meaningful outcome. Like, maybe I was just going to be just another guy locked into a 9:00 to 5:00 subsistence life? And maybe I wasn't as impressive and driven as I thought I was? Chris Erwin:Did that scare you? Chas Lacaillade:Oh, yeah. Definitely. That's a very unique kind of terror because it's not fleeting. It's not momentary. It's ongoing, doesn't leave you even when you sleep. It's with you when you're awake. It's with you when you're asleep. It changes your demeanor. It changes your outlook. It changes how people see you because you're questioning your very essence. You don't know if you're capable or, at that point, I didn't know if I was capable of doing what I always thought I was capable of. And so basically, at the same time I wasn't going to stop. You know, the only way forward was to push on. Chris Erwin:I think what you're getting on that's interesting is that, your planned trajectory and your fast rise had become part of your identity, that's how you knew yourself. And all of a sudden you're saying, "There could almost be a paradigm shift in my life. And if this is not my identity, then who am I-" Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... "what's my purpose?" Chas Lacaillade:You know, I was used to being identified as keen, and hardworking, and talented, and then I had to look at myself in the mirror and say, "Well, if I'm those things, then why am I 30 years old and have a few hundred bucks in the bank?" Because people with those characteristic generally have a little bit more to show for them. And so I figured, okay, I'm running into a bit of a wall here, in my life and in my career, I need to do something where I can hopefully apply my drive and get something more out of it. And so, basically I got a job at a renewable energy company- Chris Erwin:Change industry's entirely. Chas Lacaillade:Change industry's entirely. And all these friends and family who'd seen you really work hard at something, in my case was in Hollywood, they say, "Good. Great." You know, "Happy for you," but you detect a little bit of doubt in their voice and you can't help but be unsettled by that. And you're 30 years old, I was 30 and I was like, "Oh my god. I'm basically starting from the bottom." Chris Erwin:Yeah. And I think that could also be a downward spiral where you think that there's doubt in your peer's voice about you, or their thoughts about you, but is that reality or is that just your perception and you're whipping yourself? Chas Lacaillade:I think it was reality, I think people were skeptical. But I would also say that, as you get older you realize that everybody's insecure about themselves, and so that could also be their lack of belief that they could do it. And so when they hear that you're going to switch fields, and you're going to do something completely different, in some cases what they're thinking is, "Well, I can never do that, so how's he going to do it?" Or, "I don't know anybody who's done that, how's he going to do it?" And what you need to take faith in is that, look, if you're determined and you have a game plan, it doesn't matter if they don't know anybody who's done it or if they can't do it, you can do it. Everything is doable. If there's a problem, there's a solution, so that's the way I approach things. Chas Lacaillade:And I got a job at a renewable energy company based out of Orange County, it was in Costa Mesa, and I had to commute from West LA to Costa Mesa five days a week. Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:I mean, my office was essentially a garage in Costa Mesa, I mean, it was dark. Chris Erwin:So you show up- Chas Lacaillade:Literally and figuratively. And my peers were nothing like ... I wasn't interacting with these entertainment luminaries who are ... Tom Cruise wasn't on the phone. It was just basically old guys who were selling water pumps to plumbing warehouses, so talk about a total shift in gears. And my job was head of national sales, so when I wasn't in the office I was meeting with different plumbing supply warehouses and distributors throughout the nation, and getting them to carry our product, which I did very well. I increased the distribution and footprint of the product dramatically, like over 10 times. And I drove sales for this company, and I established a reputation with a group of people that I never thought I would know. Chas Lacaillade:And I say that I could not of started Bottle Rocket without my time working at ICM for that really hard boss, and I also couldn't have started Bottle Rocket had I not been head of sales for this company selling a product. It's a lot easier to sell a glamorous movie star to a studio that already wants to work with her, than it is to sell another water pump to a plumbing warehouse that has to carry it on the shelf. Chris Erwin:Did you believe that you learned these sales skills from any of your peers or the leadership at this company, or did you just have to figure it out on the go? Chas Lacaillade:You have to be open to your environment. You have to pick up cues. You have to see what people respond to. You have to read and listen to people who are experts in the field. So, there's a lot of sales manuals I read, and techniques I tried to pick and employ. Chris Erwin:Any sales seminars, weekend seminars, courses? Chas Lacaillade:No, I didn't do those so much, but obviously YouTube videos. And sales is so much about people and your relationship to people, and luckily I had developed an ability to really relate to a broad array of people, and broad range of people. And if you lead with sincerity and humor, generally, then at least you can open up somebody's receptivity to whatever message you want to convey. Chris Erwin:And the fact that you were looking at YouTube videos back then, it's just interesting to think about where you then went next. Chas Lacaillade:Right, isn't that funny. Yeah. Chris Erwin:Because you ended up at Fullscreen, but did you go right to Fullscreen, a multi-channel network, after selling water pumps, or was there another stop in between? Chas Lacaillade:Basically, I'd been working at this restaurant in West Hollywood all the while, just to pick up extra revenue. So I was definitely hustling, hustling hard to made ends meet. Chris Erwin:So you're full-time and part-time work in this period? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. I had an epiphany when I was on a sales trip to Louisiana, and I was driving around the Bayou of Louisiana with this manufacturer's rep who was my conduit in Louisiana, distributing the pumps, and he said, "What did you used to do before you were selling pumps?" And I told him about my career at ICM. And he said, "Hold on. You and I are driving around Louisiana in 95 degree heat, trying to sell friggen water pumps, and you used to talk to movie stars and screen writers? What the hell is your problem?" He's like, "I would give up everything to start at the company that you left." He's like, "If you can leave this and go back to that ... And if you don't love this, which nobody does ..." Chas Lacaillade:He's like, "This is a means to the end. I put food on the table for my family, myself. I've got a daughter and this is how I pay for my life. You don't have any of those commitments. You're not married. You're single. You're young enough to go back to it." He's like, "If you love it like it sounds like you do, go back." This guy's name was Dustin [Ubray 00:23:08], shout out to Dustin Ubray. Chris Erwin:Thanks, Dustin Ubray, for pointing Chas on his new path. Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, and- Chris Erwin:So you hear this- Chas Lacaillade:And I'm like- Chris Erwin:... and what goes through your head? Chas Lacaillade:And I'm realizing like, you know what? I'm always going to care a lot about the environment and sustainability, but the real truth is, this is not the life I envisioned or that I want. And I was open to it and I gave it a go, but I don't see this unfolding in a way that's going to make me happy. And it's always important to explore things and really give them a sincere look, but if it doesn't feel right, you cannot be reluctant to pull the ripcord. And a lot of people are scared of starting over, and so much of success boils down to your ability to start from scratch and just persist. Chris Erwin:So in that moment, did you feel any regret where you were like, "Oh my god, I made this big change in my career and it seems that it was off to the wayside, and now I've got to get back on track"? Or did you interpret it as, "Wow, this was a really special moment, I learned a lot, and now I'm going to go back into entertainment, find a new opportunity space, but I'm further energized to do it"? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:What were you feeling? Chas Lacaillade:Well at that point, so now I'm 32, and I'm like, "Okay, the sand's going through the hourglass on me, and I'm going to do another pivot to I don't know where. I don't know who's going to hire me." And I've got some explaining to do next time I sit down at an interview because I've got some accomplishments under my belt, but they're two wildly different and divergent fields. So people are going to be curious, some people are going to be skeptical, and I'm going to have to prove myself in the room and I'm going to really have to prove myself ... if somebody gives me a chance, I'm going to really have to bust my arse for them to have faith that they made the right decision. Chris Erwin:But you had confidence that you were going to be able to do that? Chas Lacaillade:I had confidence I was going to be able to do it, but back to what we were discussing with people not wanting to take risks, HR departments are not known for being open-minded. They want to look at that resume and they want to see identifiable qualities that will give them insurance if they make a hire that doesn't work out. And so, I didn't have this, and so what I depended on was getting in the room. It was like, if I get in the room, I've got a strong chance at getting the job, but just getting in the room is tough. Chris Erwin:How did you get in the room for Fullscreen? Chas Lacaillade:I had a- Chris Erwin:Did you pick them or did they pick you? Chas Lacaillade:I had a really close friend from ICM who was best friends with the head of production at Fullscreen, and Fullscreen was a startup, and they had- Chris Erwin:Yeah, what was Fullscreen, for our audience? Chas Lacaillade:Fullscreen was a multi-channel network known as an MCN, which is basically, Fullscreen's raison d'etre was "we are going to collect a broad range of YouTube channels, and sell advertising against those YouTube channels." That's a really broad overview of what they did. And so the money that Fullscreen made was, the revenue source, was advertising on YouTube. Chris Erwin:Got it. Chas Lacaillade:That's how they made money. They had a few dozen employees. They had some venture capital investment from Peter [inaudible 00:25:59]. So yeah, a good friend of mine knew they had production there, had a production. Put my resume in the mix for a role, I went in to interview, they needed somebody just to work with these YouTuber's. I had a background in entertainment and I really, really emphasized that. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Chas Lacaillade:And my background was legitimate, and it was quality, and I had worked with a lot of people, and I had good references. Chris Erwin:So you had ICM on your resume- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... that's instant pedigree in entertainment. Chas Lacaillade:I had references, and if they wanted to call anybody, that a lot of people liked me or were fond of me, and my work ethic was there. So at that point, a lot of people from the traditional entertainment world didn't respect YouTube, and didn't see it as a viable commercial avenue. Chris Erwin:And why do you think that was? Chas Lacaillade:They basically regarded it as a distraction, as not a competitor to TV, and radio, and film. And just for very low cost entertainment that people didn't pay for. Chris Erwin:Yeah. One of the things that I heard myself, because I was also part of the multi-channel network eco system where I first started, big frame, a wish like Fullscreen had, venture capital backing, and then also had funding from a Google originals channel program, from Google itself, and then on to AwesomenessTV. And from a lot of traditional Hollywood they would say, "These digitally native creators, they're not used to hearing the word, no. They just had this unique moment in time where they started publishing videos on YouTube or a social channel, and then they got famous." And it felt very strongly that unless you were in the annals of these MCNs, or working with these next-gen talent, you don't understand the amount of hard work, the amount of time and the commitment to the audiences that they created for themself, and the brands that they created for themself. So, I hear you on that. Chris Erwin:Chas, you're at Fullscreen and this is the job that you had right before founding Bottle Rocket, and remind me what was your role while you were at Fullscreen? Chas Lacaillade:I was the head of talent sales. Chris Erwin:Was this a division that you actually founded at the company? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. So basically what happened at Fullscreen was, I was hired to be a "talent manager," and we had a sales department and division at Fullscreen. You know, I was talking to the talent, I was working with these YouTubers. This is early, this is 2013. They would get offers to promote products for 5,000 or 2,500 bucks, and the big YouTuber's case like $10,000, and I said, "You know, I've got experience in talent representation, let me secure and negotiate these opportunities for you." So I close a deal for a talent to promote a product, and sales caught wind of what I was doing, the sales department, and they said, "Listen, it's not your role to do any sort of sales activity here at Fullscreen. We are the division and the department that's dedicated to that. And the threshold for any deals that our talent participates in is $50,000. If it's not $50,000 or above, it's not worth Fullscreen's time. You know, if it's less than 50K, we pass on it." Chris Erwin:So, they're telling you to stay in your lane- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... and here's your lane by the way, what this looks like, and let us do our thing? Chas Lacaillade:And if it's less than 50K, decline. And I said, "Well, there's a lot of money between $1 and $50,000, we're leaving a lot of money on the table, and that's really important for our clients, that's how they pay their bills." And they said, "Listen, if it gets to 50K, hand it over to us and we'll take care of it." Kind of a pat on the head. And I found that incredibly shortsighted, and I was not deterred for a nanosecond. And I- Chris Erwin:Yeah, let's focus on that for a second. So, not deterred. So, other people might hear that feedback, get really frustrated, but then just say, "Okay, I've been told to stay in my lane, this is what I'm going to do." But you did not react like that. Was it potentially a catalyst for you? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. No, it absolutely was. So I'm like, "I know how to do this. I see the opportunity here. These people are really creative, they have really large audiences. They've got a really special unique relationship with that audience, and this is something that nobody's doing, so I'm going to do it." And I went up to the business affairs office. I was on the second floor and I said, "Please make me a two-page template that I can repeat and just swap out names, and print out information." They made a two-page deal template for me, and I proceeded to create my own world basically, and owned a division, an army of one, where I would source a deal, secure and negotiate the deal, and close it, and invoice for it, and Fullscreen's 10% would just go to Fullscreen's accounting department. And the sale division didn't like that, but I was providing a service to all the talent that was in the network, that became undeniable. Chris Erwin:Now you're running around as a team of one- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... was this exciting for you, while also- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, absolutely. Chris Erwin:I mean, it must have been awkward at the same time because then within the same walls of the building, there's people frustrated with your behavior, yet you're like, "Wow, I just found this goldmine and I'm going after them." Chas Lacaillade:Yeah, I didn't care about them. You know, they weren't my friends and I wasn't impressed by them professionally. I didn't think that they were good at their jobs. I didn't think they knew their product. To be an effective salesperson you have to know our product, and none of these people watched YouTube, none of them had relationships with the YouTubers that they were tasked with selling. Chris Erwin:Got it. Chas Lacaillade:To work in this space, you have to be able to pick up the phone and call the talent and say, "I've got this opportunity for you, is this exciting to you? How would you integrate this product into your content?" And you have to have a conversation with them. And if you don't any sort of rapport with that talent, then good luck. And so, I had developed a rapport with this talent. I knew how advertising worked. I could speak that language very fluidly, given my experience at the ad agency in Manhattan. I also knew how to deal with talent via my experience at ICM. I knew sales, via my experience at the renewable energy company. Chris Erwin:It's like all this is coming together. Chas Lacaillade:So all these three really separate experiences unified in this really elegant tapestry, that set me apart, made me unique from my peers at Fullscreen, and allowed me to really confidently stake out my claim, and so that's what I did. At this point I'm 32 years old. Had I been 25, I might've been a little bit more intimidated. But because I knew what I was doing, I had a very clear vision for the future and how I was going to use my skillset to drive value and create value for the company, I was able to rebuff all the feeble pleas and objections that were being posed by my peers who were threatened. Chris Erwin:Did this moment feel like a very unique inflection point where all my past career experience, my capabilities, my learnings, my mindset, it's like, "This is happening now in my early 30s." Going back to that identity of "the world is my oyster." Right? Chas Lacaillade:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chris Erwin:It's like what you were thinking when you were in high school in your early days. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:And did you feel like in this moment it's like, "This is it"? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. So it did feel like that, and I felt like, "Look, the money's not big now, but everything has to start from somewhere." And also, I was synthesizing all of those biographies I'd read of Sam Walton starting out Walmart with just a Five and Dime store here, or then he built to three "Five and Dime stores in Arkansas and Memphis, and these outposts that were in these rinky-dink towns, but no one else was building there. And what I felt was, I'm building stores where no one else is, and I'm going to get customers that no one else is going to get. And by the time that everybody wakes up, I'm going to have more stores than anyone else. And so I moved very quickly and I thought, "Look, I don't know where this is going to go, but this is something that's valuable, and interesting, and engaging, and I'm developing a reputation internally as somebody who's got a clear point of view." And people are attracted to and drawn to someone with a point of view and an idea on how to create value. Chris Erwin:It's clear that you are no longer at Fullscreen. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:You now are at a company that you founded, Bottle Rocket Management. Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:When did you found Bottle Rocket? Chas Lacaillade:So AT&T bought Fullscreen in 2015, and at that point Fullscreen was not intent on being in the talent representation business and I was. And I had my Jerry Maguire moment where I called all my clients and said, "Am I your manager? Am I your manager? And if so, this is my new endeavor, I'm going out on my own." Chris Erwin:Was that scary to do that? Chas Lacaillade:It was terrifying. I took out a $5,000 loan from Chase Bank, and there was no interest for the first 18 months. Chris Erwin:And what was that loan for? Chas Lacaillade:To live. So- Chris Erwin:Pay rent, food- Chas Lacaillade:Pay rent, my rent was $1,200 a month, so I figured I could get by for a quarter, three months- Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:... if I just had one meal a day, didn't do anything on the weekend, no bars or entertainment, or movies. Basically, ate one meal a day, and paid my internet bill, and paid my rent, I could get by for three months. Chris Erwin:So this is extreme focus. Chas Lacaillade:Yep. Chris Erwin:Your job during these three months is, I got basic financing in place and now I'm going to build a company, and it's going to win. And you have your horse blinders on? Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:What happens over those three months? Chas Lacaillade:And so, I was able to pay the $5,000 back within 45 days- Chris Erwin:Wow. Chas Lacaillade:... and had no debt, and I'd closed enough deals that I knew I was going to make enough money to live in that year, in 2015. So, Bottle Rocket started March 1st, 2015 and all the clients I represented at Fullscreen formally, decided that they wanted to line up with me and I built a business. So from a one-bedroom apartment in Venice, I just sat there and called people all day. Chris Erwin:You knew 45 days in, you had something? Chas Lacaillade:Yes. Chris Erwin:You look at your business now, the business that you have from a revenue point of view, and volume point of view, is a lot larger than a lot of other next-gen management companies. What was that next inflection point where you're like, "Okay, I don't just have something here, I have something really special"? Chas Lacaillade:I think it's when I started needing to bring on staff. You know, I'd been doing everything by myself. Chris Erwin:And when was that? Chas Lacaillade:It was 2017, and now we've got a staff of five, including myself. You know, what I'm really thrilled about it how busy everybody is, and how the environment feels really entrepreneurial, really light. I feel like if you have a sense of lightness within the company, and joy, that people are going to put forth discretionary effort, they're going to give you that extra ... whether it's talent, or whether it's the buyer, or whether it's your own colleague, if they know that you're coming from a place of reason and you're a good person, you're just going to get more out of everything and everybody. Now, there's a lot of challenging encounters, there's times when points of view collide and you still have to be firm, and you have to have faith that your position is legitimate. And perhaps somebody wants something from you or from your client that is unreasonable, that's where the challenge is. How do I create customer delight and value for this person, whilst still maintaining my position? Chris Erwin:As you think about how you energize in your business, and you continually refine your leadership and your management philosophy, how do you do that? Is it through reading? Do you have like a mastermind's group? How do you come into your business every day and push yourself to be better for your clients? Chas Lacaillade:Personally for myself, you've got to nurse your mind with new points of view, and you've got to read, and you've got to stay current. Personally, I read the Wall Street Journal, which is not exactly cutting-edge technique. Chris Erwin:While on the bike at the Bay Club? Chas Lacaillade:Yep. Yep, I read the Wall Street Journal every day. One of my professors at USC Business School said, "If you want to be smarter, read The Wall Street Journal every day." Very simple piece of advice and I took it to heart, and I feel like it's very helpful. You know, basically I want to get information from places that aren't the internet. You're definitely a more well-rounded individual if you're not just sighting whatever was on Apple News that day. So I read the newspaper every day. I read fiction and nonfiction. You've got to keep your vocabulary relevant and sharp, and your mind dynamic, and reading different pieces of information and literature, it helps you do that. Because so much of being interesting to others, is being interested in what other people are doing and how the world's working. And so, if I'm interesting to my peers and people that I want to do business with, then that's already a head start in the right direction. And so, that's how I keep it fresh. Chris Erwin:You raise a good point because if you're just reading the same industry pubs that everyone's reading, which it's good to be current, but if you're just in Variety, and Hollywood Reporter, and Tubefilter all day, you're not giving your mind space to breathe. And so when you say, "Mind, body, spirits," so it's out of being an avid reader, how do you also energize your body and your spirit? Chas Lacaillade:You know, sometimes I surf, as you know. I play soccer at a rec sports league. I play basketball with some friends occasionally. I'm very active, it's just important to me to be out there moving. And the spirit and the body are very closely linked, so I feel like if I'm running or playing a sport, then my spirit is being nourished. Chris Erwin:I'm not sure if you're going to enjoy me sharing this story, but yes, Chas and I, we have skied together many times at Sundance and Park City. We've also surfed many times here in LA. And I will say, I think the last time that we went and surfed at Malibu at Second Point, Chas was really excited to get in the water, he hadn't been in in a bit. As we're walking to the beach, I just look at his surfboard and I'm like, "Okay, there's normally three fins on a surfboard, but I only see two on yours, Chas. What's going on?" You're like, "Yeah, it's immaterial, don't worry about it." I'm like, "Okay," thinking you need three fins, but all good. Then we get to the beach and Chas says, he's like, "This wetsuit is so uncomfortable, it's so tight in all these weird places. What's going on here?" I'm like, "Is this a new wetsuit? You've had it before, right?" He's like, "Yeah. No, it's the same one, but this is just weird." Chris Erwin:I thought to myself and I was like, "All right, I remember a similar conversation the last time we surfed." And then I look over at Chas, right before I say it, Chas says it, he goes, "I think this wetsuit's on backwards." And so the suit was on backwards, but what I loved was that instead of Chas being like, "Oh, I'm going to go walk back to the car and change it," or, "I have to go get another fin," you were just like, "I'm getting in the water. I'm fine. You know, I don't care what people think, let's go," and we went right into it. And I think that was a great reflection of how you approach life- Chas Lacaillade:Yeah. Chris Erwin:... and business, and friendships. You're just like, "I'm doing what I'm doing, and I'm happy with it-" Chas Lacaillade:The wetsuit- Chris Erwin:... "and I don't care what anyone else thinks." Chas Lacaillade:The wetsuit being on backwards is not going to change the waves. Chris Erwin:Yeah, exactly. Chas Lacaillade:The board's there, the wave's there, I'm here. All the necessary elements for me surfing are present, so ... I was in the water and some dude's like, "Your wetsuit's on backwards." I was like, "I'm clear on that. I know that." I think I spaced out in the moment, I think I was caught up in conversation. Hadn't had my caffeine dose and idiotically put my wetsuit on backwards, but then I was just like, "Ah, you know what?-" Chris Erwin:Maybe it's a reflection- Chas Lacaillade:... "It's not going to slow me down." Chris Erwin:You're so in the moment and you're so present, you didn't even know your wetsuit was on backwards. You know, so maybe that's a good thing, maybe more people need to have that happen to them. All right, so before we get into our rapid fire round, last question on Bottle Rocket. What are some of your 2020 goals for Bottle Rocket and the team? What do you look forward to? Chas Lacaillade:I want to develop relationships with new buyers that we haven't worked with previously, that's really important to me. You've got to keep exploring opportunity with the marketplace and developing new relationships. And then, definitely signing new talent that's exciting and dynamic, and that's going to raise and elevate the perception of Bottle Rocket. And hopefully growing the Bottle Rocket team, so that I continue to have peers that inspire me and feel energized to come to work. Chris Erwin:When we talk about new talent, because we were talking a bit before this, you're not just a digital talent management company, you're next-gen. To prove that point out, you've signed traditional talent, you've signed also writers, you've diversified across your entertainment roster. Which I think is great and it's interesting to see how when you have that diversity of talent, they can work and collaborate with one another- Chas Lacaillade:Right. Chris Erwin:... which really fuels your own internal business. But are there any certain types of talent that you are specifically seeking out in the new year? Chas Lacaillade:What I want to identify and what I'd love to represent, are people with really unique points of view and unique skillsets. YouTube, there's a lot of derivative content on YouTube, and herd mentality is pervasive in all forms and genres of entertainment and media. But when you really strike gold is when you've got that person who galvanizes an audience because of who they are and how they see the world, and how they interact with the world. The Will Smith's of the world, ELiza Koshy, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah. And so you want to find that person or people who have a magnetism about them that's undeniable. Chris Erwin:Well, we wish you a very prosperous 2020. Chas Lacaillade:Thank you. Thank you. Chris Erwin:So, we'll go into the closing rapid fire questions, how's that sound? Chas Lacaillade:Great. Chris Erwin:All right. So these can be just quick, two to three sentence answers. If you want to be even more brief, we're open to that. Looking back on your career, what would you say your single proudest moment and accomplishment is to date? Chas Lacaillade:The day I started Bottle Rocket Management, March 1st, 2015. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do less and more of in 2020? Let's start with less. Chas Lacaillade:Worry. Worry, there's no form of progress when you're contemplating what's going to go wrong, or whatever may happen will adversely affect you. You've just got to believe. Chris Erwin:Rapid fire follow-up to that, what do you worry about the most? Chas Lacaillade:Delivering for my clients and my team. Chris Erwin:What do you want to do more of in 2020? Chas Lacaillade:Well, I definitely want my team to feel inspired and really excited to be at Bottle Rocket. And I want them to have personal wins, so that they feel like it's not just a company where they work for me, it's where they work for themselves and they're developing their own reputations. Chris Erwin:Entrepreneurial advice. What one to two personal characteristics do you think have primarily driven your success? Chas Lacaillade:Say, persistence. Persistence is definitely the main identifiable characteristic that's helped me. And humility, just accepting that you're going to have to prove yourself and people aren't going to hand you the biggest, juiciest opportunities off the bat. And so, you have to be humble and prove yourself. Chris Erwin:We talk about persistence a lot, where there's ebbs and flows in the business cycles and your own individual business, and with your team, but if you just are always showing up everyday, there are going to be these incredible moments for you to take advantage of. But if you're not showing up, it's not going to happen. Last few questions here. How do you best take advantage of things you can't control? Chas Lacaillade:I think you've just got to be clear. You've just got to figure out what your position is and how you see things. Articulate that to whomever is necessary, and be open-minded. Chris Erwin:Okay, last two. Quick shot advice for media professionals going into 2020? Chas Lacaillade:Try to schedule as many meetings with people that you're curious about, and want to meet and want to know, and sit down with them wherever they are, and make yourself available. Chris Erwin:Last question. How can people get in contact with you, Chas, the CEO and founder of Bottle Rocket Management? Chas Lacaillade:My email address is chas@bottlerocketmanagement.com, spelled out. Chris Erwin:We'll also include that in the show notes. Chas Lacaillade:Excellent. Chris Erwin:Well, this has been a delight, Chas. Great to have you in today. Chas Lacaillade:Thank you. Chris Erwin:See you around at the next surf sess. Chas Lacaillade:Right on. Chris Erwin:Wow, I really enjoyed that conversation with Chas. Like I said in the beginning, he is a total straight shooter and tells you like it is, and that really came across. I don't know if you guys felt this, but when he started talking about founding Bottle Rocket and leaving Fullscreen, in the room you could see and you could feel his energy just ramping. It was exciting. I thought that was a pretty special moment in our conversation. The excitement of an entrepreneur. So a few quick things on your radar, our next podcast will feature Christian Baesler, the President of Complex Media. He is a young media savant, with a very impressive career track record. Fun facts about Christian, he was born east of the Berlin Wall, and in the same week that the week came down. Pretty incredible. And when he was right out of college at a big international media company, he was tasked with overseeing a digital division, and they needed a digital website network to be built, Christian just built it himself. Impressive stuff. Chris Erwin:Second thing on your radar, listeners, is that our company RockWater, will be hosting a live stream media and selling conference in 2021. Likely in the first quarter in March, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like yet, but we will bring together great speakers, good programming, and we're looking for people who want to get involved. So if you're interested, you can email us at TCUpod@wearerockwater.com. Stay tuned for that. All right, that's it. Thanks all for listening. Chris Erwin:The Come Up is written and hosted by me, Chris Erwin, and is a production of RockWater Industries. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcast. And remember to subscribe, wherever you listen to our show. And if you really dig us, feel free to forward The Come Up to a friend. You can sign up for our company newsletter at wearerockwater.com/newsletter. And you can follow us on Twitter @TCUpod. The Come Up is engineered by Daniel Tureck. Music is by Devon Bryant. Logo and branding is by Kevin Zazzali. And special thanks to Andrew Cohen and Sean Diep from the RockWater team.
Jeff Levin is an entrepreneur, entertainment executive and talent manager with over 10 years of experience in the entertainment industry. He previously helped launch the Gen Z focused entertainment network AwesomenessTV (acquired by DreamWorks), serving as their Head of Talent. He currently manages entertainers like Logan Paul and That Girl Lay Lay. On this episode, we discuss the current and future Gen Z content and entertainment landscape, managing and monetizing social influence, and the things that networks and brands are currently getting wrong about Gen Z.
Don't miss out on the next WeAreLATech podcast episode, get notified by signing up here http://wearelatech.com/podcastWelcome to WeAreLATech's LA Tech Startup Spotlight!“Bridge The Entertainment Tech & Digital Media Gap In Our Ecosystem”Get your very own WeAreLATech tee at http://wearelatech.com/shopWeAreLATech Podcast is a WeAreTech.fm production.To support our podcast go to http://wearelatech.com/believeTo be featured on the podcast go to http://wearelatech.com/feature-your-la-startup/Want to be featured in the WeAreLATech Community? Create your profile here http://wearelatech.com/communityGuest Host, Brian Nickersonhttps://twitter.com/briannickersonhttps://www.magiclinks.org/Guest,Jameela Jackson of Startup Grind Hollywoodjameela@startupgrind.comhttps://twitter.com/VelvetRope_PRFor a calendar of all LA Startup events go to, http://WeAreLATech.comTo further immerse yourself into the LA Tech community go to http://wearelatech.com/vipLinks Mentioned:Startup Grind Hollywood, https://www.startupgrind.com/hollywood/Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/AwesomenessTV, https://awesomenesstv.com/UNINTERRUPTED, https://www.uninterrupted.com/Popular Demand, https://www.populardemandshop.com/People Mentioned:Sarah Penna, https://twitter.com/sarah_pennaCam Kashani, https://twitter.com/CamSKashaniDevin Johnson, https://twitter.com/DevinJulian Mitchell, https://twitter.com/AllThingsMitchBlake Ricciardi, https://twitter.com/BlakeRicciardiCredits:Produced and Hosted by Espree Devora, http://espreedevora.comStory produced, Edited and Mastered by Adam Carroll, http://www.ariacreative.ca/Show Notes by Karl Marty, http://karlmarty.comMusic by Jay Huffman, https://soundcloud.com/jayhuffmanShort Title: Startup Grind Hollywood
What does it take to get to 1 billion+ views on YouTube? From chiropractic to achieving success on YouTube, Jeffery Reynolds has reached that benchmark across several channels by continuing to innovate. He understands that success takes time and that to achieve his dreams, he just needed to get started. About the Guest: Jeff’s wife and he own YouTube channels that total over a Million Subscribers and over a Billion Views. Their videos have earned millions of dollars in ad revenue. They have made videos directly for AwesomenessTV when they were owned by DreamWorks Animations as well as made many videos for the brand's advertising campaigns. You can see examples of their work on two of their channels called HappyFamily1004 and JeffMara. They write, shoot, direct, and edit their own videos. Jeff also can provide personal private consultation. He has over 12 years of experience posting content on YouTube with videos including nerf action videos, nerf review videos, airsoft review videos, toy dart gun reviews, vlogging and more. He is also working on developing a new channel that reviews anything! Now he has ventured into podcasting as well. Before he became a YouTuber he was a successful chiropractor for 20 years. He owned his own clinic as well as working in MD / DC multi-practitioner clinic. Personal Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-reynolds-93225a11/JeffMara Podcast Facebook Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/jeffmarapodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/HappyFamily1004 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkDbxGSyvOgR8UJj3m0GC6Q YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_c8KysI2G9rAbNyD1dVd6g Resource Links: Crush it: https://amzn.to/38EmYG3 Crushing It: https://amzn.to/3faUVjH The 4 Hour Work Week: https://amzn.to/3iERS5A About the Host: Dan McPherson, International Speaker, Business and Personal Development Coach, and CEO of Leaders Must Lead, is on a mission to help Creatives and Entrepreneurs create and grow profit and understand that Dreams ARE Real. With more than 25 years’ experience in corporate roles leading teams of up to 2000 and responsible for more than $150M in revenue, Dan is a recognized expert in leadership, sales, and business strategy. Through his Leaders Must Learn Mastermind, Dreams ARE Real Podcast, Foundations of Success Training, and powerful 1-1 coaching, Dan helps hundreds of entrepreneurs around the world from musicians and artists to chiropractors, coaches, retailers, and beyond experience success and accomplish their goals. To learn more about Dan or to follow him on Social Media, you can find him on: Website: www.leadersmustlead.com Leaders Must Lead Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leadersmustlead Free Coaching Assessment: https://leadersmustlead.com/free-coaching-assessment Dreams are Real Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/365493184118010/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leadersmustlead/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/leadersmustlead YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZXypDeFKyZnpeQXcX-AsBQ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to my podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a note in the comment section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe from the podcast app on your mobile device. Leave us an iTunes review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to me and greatly appreciated. They help my podcast rank higher on iTunes, which exposes the show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.
Kestrin Pantera is writer/director The New York Times called “a force.” Her new feature film, “Mother’s Little Helpers” World Premiered at SXSW 2019. Early reviews laud the film as a “wonderful, Big Chill-esque dramedy,” with “big screen chemistry from the ground up.” Her first feature, Let's Ruin It With Babies, was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as, “honest, convincing, and just plain adorable.” She created several TV series for AwesomenessTV and digital series for Facebook. Her commercial directing clients include WIRED, Technicolor, Johnson & Johnson, BeTheMatch, and she's created additional content for Google, Coca Cola, GE, Starwood, Intel, Best Buy, HBO, Starbucks and Stoli. Before directing, Kestrin was a classically trained musician-turned-rocker, playing cello in rock bands in Los Angeles and on tour across the world. Prior to LA, she lived in Taipei, Taiwan, where she became fluent in Mandarin and performed voice-overs for 100+ companies in the US and Southeast Asia. Kestrin lives in Los Angeles with her family and a small menagerie of found animals. "Mother's Little Helpers" is now available on Amazon Prime and other streaming sites. http://kestrin.com https://www.facebook.com/MothersLittleHelpersFilm/ http://twitter.com/kestrin http://instagram.com/kestrinpantera
Actress, Recording Artist, Professional Ice Skater and Dancer, Tetona Jackson is available to discuss her current role in the BET Breakout show “Boomerang”. The television series acts as a sequel to the 1992 film of the same name which starred Halle Barry and Eddie Murphy. The new series picks up roughly 25 years later with Tetona Jackson playing the character of Simone as she tries to step out of her parents' shadows and make a legacy of their own. Her parents are played by Halle Barry and Eddie Murphy respectively in the film. The series will follow a group of childhood friends as adults who are looking to make their own mark as marketing professionals, while navigating their feelings for each other. As an actress on the silver and small screen, Tetona has also starred in MAXIMUM RIDE, from the bestselling James Patterson literary series of the same name, STOLEN FROM SUBIRBIA, DEAR DIARY I DIED and more! Recently, Tetona also starred as a series regular on the Hulu x AwesomenessTV series “All Night”. Portraying the young and spunky character Cassie, Tetona Jackson took on the role as the young lesbian who is holding her romantic relationship with another character a secret. Tetona is not only happy to be part of the youthful comedy but is happy to have been able to portray an LGBT character which an interesting character arc. Fans of Tetona can keep up to date with all her projects via: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itstetonajackson/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/itstetona About the show: ► Website: http://www.ashsaidit.com ► Need Goli Gummies? https://go.goli.com/1loveash5 ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH584216 ►For discount Pangea Products: https://embracepangaea.grsm.io/ashsaiditmedia3226 ► Want the ‘coldest' water? https://thecoldestwater.com/?ref=ashleybrown12 ► Become A Podcast Legend: http://ashsaidit.podcastersmastery.zaxaa.com/s/6543767021305 ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ash-said-it/id1144197789 ► SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSaidItSuwanee ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1loveash ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashsaidit ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AshSaidItMedia ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog ► Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/1LoveAsh/ ► Newsletter: manage1.com/subscribe?u=2a2ca3b799467f125b53863http://ashsaidit.us11.list-c8&id=a6f43cd472 #atlanta #ashsaidit #ashsaidthat #ashblogsit #ashsaidit® Ash Brown is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, media personality and event emcee. The blog on AshSaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews and so much more. Her motivational podcast "Ash Said It Daily" is available on major media platforms such as iTunes, iHeart Radio & Google Play. This program has over half a million streams worldwide. She uses these mediums to motivate & encourage her audience in the most powerful way. She keeps it real! #blacklivesmatter #blm
Actress, Recording Artist, Professional Ice Skater and Dancer, Tetona Jackson is available to discuss her current role in the BET Breakout show “Boomerang”. The television series acts as a sequel to the 1992 film of the same name which starred Halle Barry and Eddie Murphy. The new series picks up roughly 25 years later with Tetona Jackson playing the character of Simone as she tries to step out of her parents' shadows and make a legacy of their own. Her parents are played by Halle Barry and Eddie Murphy respectively in the film. The series will follow a group of childhood friends as adults who are looking to make their own mark as marketing professionals, while navigating their feelings for each other. As an actress on the silver and small screen, Tetona has also starred in MAXIMUM RIDE, from the bestselling James Patterson literary series of the same name, STOLEN FROM SUBIRBIA, DEAR DIARY I DIED and more! Recently, Tetona also starred as a series regular on the Hulu x AwesomenessTV series “All Night”. Portraying the young and spunky character Cassie, Tetona Jackson took on the role as the young lesbian who is holding her romantic relationship with another character a secret. Tetona is not only happy to be part of the youthful comedy but is happy to have been able to portray an LGBT character which an interesting character arc. Fans of Tetona can keep up to date with all her projects via: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itstetonajackson/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/itstetona About the show: ► Website: http://www.ashsaidit.com ► Need Goli Gummies? https://go.goli.com/1loveash5 ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH584216 ►For discount Pangea Products: https://embracepangaea.grsm.io/ashsaiditmedia3226 ► Want the ‘coldest' water? https://thecoldestwater.com/?ref=ashleybrown12 ► Become A Podcast Legend: http://ashsaidit.podcastersmastery.zaxaa.com/s/6543767021305 ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ash-said-it/id1144197789 ► SUBSCRIBE HERE: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSaidItSuwanee ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1loveash ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashsaidit ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+AshSaidItMedia ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog ► Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/1LoveAsh/ ► Newsletter: manage1.com/subscribe?u=2a2ca3b799467f125b53863http://ashsaidit.us11.list-c8&id=a6f43cd472 #atlanta #ashsaidit #ashsaidthat #ashblogsit #ashsaidit® Ash Brown is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, media personality and event emcee. The blog on AshSaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews and so much more. Her motivational podcast "Ash Said It Daily" is available on major media platforms such as iTunes, iHeart Radio & Google Play. This program has over half a million streams worldwide. She uses these mediums to motivate & encourage her audience in the most powerful way. She keeps it real! #blacklivesmatter #blm
Tony and Robbie are quarantined at home without the gang, so we got on the phone and chatted with Nikki Boyer! Nikki is co-host with Ross Mathews on the “Straight Talk with Ross” podcast. She is also a 3-time Emmy award winning TV host, hosting Yahoo!’s “Daytime in No Time," Hearst Digital’s “What You Missed,” was a regular guest on E!’s “HelloRoss,” a frequent guest on The Wendy Williams Show, HLN’s Showbiz Tonight, Access Hollywood Live and countless other TV and Web Shows! Nikki maintains an acting career with appearances in Gilmore Girls, Angie Tribeca, 90210, Lie to Me, The L Word, According to Jim, Malcolm in the Middle as well as starring in the film, “Coyote County Loser,” “Jesus People” and the Geek Con romantic comedy, “Fame-ish.” Nikki writes and directs music video parodies for Electus, Yahoo, and AwesomenessTV. www.nikkiboyer.com Nikki chats with us about her newest podcast, "Dying for Sex." You don't want to miss this podcast. Nikki’s best friend Molly is diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, she decides to do something bold. She leaves an unhappy marriage and embarks on a series of sexual adventures to feel alive. Over this six-part miniseries, Molly shares the details of her hilarious escapades in a story about friendship, death, and what you do with the time you have left. https://wondery.com/shows/dying-for-sex/ We close it out with Nikki's band this week, The Cardboard Cutouts and their song "Hide & Seek." Theme music: “Around the Bend” by Evan Schaeffer http://soundcloud.com/evanschaeffer.
How do you build a brand exclusively for woman-identifying people? We've brought two incredible women in to discuss their experiences in creating wildly successful media--the "Cinderella of Tech" Sophia Amoruso and co-head of AwesomenessTV, Rebecca Glashow. The two discuss their experiences in creating media for consumers who identify as women and their individual roles in the media landscape.
Co-hosts Daniella Monet and Andrew Gardner share their wild-crazy-turbulent-terrifying-beautiful-loving-perfect birth story and explain what it means to them to create this show as the resource and community they only wish they’d had. -- Here on Adulting like a Mother Father hosts Daniella Monet (who you’ll recognize from Nickelodeon’s “Victorious”, “AwesomenessTV”, “Paradise Run”) and Andrew Gardner (creator of Gafton clothing and finance wiz turned full-time dad) give listeners a peak into life as first time parents...and motherFATHER it's a wild ride. The duo navigate all things adulting: health & fitness to finances & romance, all the while balancing highly successful careers AND new baby. Listen along as they chat with experts, celebrities and friends in their community, because adulting may not be easy, but at least we’re in it together!
We're so excited to bring our new and improved podcast back! Find out what we've been up to, plus what we really thought about the showcases from last weekend! Website: https://www.flocheer.com Subscribe: http://bit.ly/2q6xq2c Get the FloSports iOS app: http://bit.ly/FloCheeriOSApp_9 Follow FloCheer: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FloCheer Twitter: https://twitter.com/FloCheer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/FloCheer
USE OUR DISCOUNT CODE FOR BETTER HELP: www.BetterHelp.com/hollywire Brent Rivera is on our BEHIND THE FAME podcast! Brent is not only hilarious, but an all around awesome human. He is one of the OG influencers and YouTube personality. Brent is also one of the best in the game, always coming up with hilarious videos that his fans can’t get enough of. Jana Rosenberg and Tony Moras chat with Brent about how his career started and how far it has come since then. We also chat with him about the juicy stuff - like his celebrity crushes, which relationships he’s ‘shipping and some of the famous people he’s met along the way. We also discuss his family life and other relationships he has in the industry. Aside from making hilarious content for the internet, Brent is a star on Hulu’s “Light As A Feather”. We talk on-set moments you don’t see in the show and what else he wants to do in the acting world in the near future. Throughout our chat, Brent plays 6 Second Challenge, Hollywire How-To’s and more. We loved hanging with him on BEHIND THE FAME and can’t wait to see him in more projects soon! Born in Huntington Beach, California, Brent Austin Rivera is a social media and Youtube personality, who got his rise to fame on the app Vine. By the time of Vine’s shut down in 2017, Rivera has already collected millions of followers on other social media platforms. He currently has 9.6 million subscribers on Youtube, and over 15 million followers on Instagram. His love for entertainment started in 2009 when he created his first Youtube channel, MrBrent98. Over the past few years, Rivera has shown an interest in acting–his breakout role was in the film Alexander IRL (2017), in which he portrayed the main character. Adding to his acting resume, Rivera also starred in Brobot,(2018) and plays Issac Salcedo in the popular Hulu show Light as a Feather (2018). He has had a guest appearance on How to Survive a Break-Up (2019), an online series produced by AwesomenessTV. #BrentRivera #BrentRiveraInterview #BehindTheFamePod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Time to dust off the cosplay and bust out the color-coordinated schedules (just Kate?); 2019 Comic-Con International: San Diego is right around the corner. Kate is heading to nerdvana once again this year, so it’s time for our annual preview of SDCC 2019. Noel and Kate welcome back Kate’s sister, Maggie Kulzick, and the three go through the nearly 150 TV panels scheduled this year, highlighting their most anticipated, and which they’ll be giving a wide berth. Before that, though, Noel and Kate read out some listener feedback and talk through the week’s TV: The Detour, grown-ish, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Holey Moley, Claws, and Elementary. What are you looking forward to at Comic-Con this year, and which shows do you wish were making the trek to San Diego? Take a listen, then reach out with your picks. SDCC 2019 TV Preview (1:04:17) Our Week in TV The Detour (22:21) grown-ish (29:56) Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD (37:41) Holey Moley (44:21) Claws (49:37) Elementary (55:23) Music Featured: “Never Knew Love Like This Before” by Stephanie Mills; “The Comic-Con Song!” by Alex Goyette, Mikey Bolts, and Joey Buss, originally made for AwesomenessTV
Time to dust off the cosplay and bust out the color-coordinated schedules (just Kate?); 2019 Comic-Con International: San Diego is right around the corner. Kate is heading to nerdvana once again this year, so it’s time for our annual preview of SDCC 2019. Noel and Kate welcome back Kate’s sister, Maggie Kulzick, and the three go through the nearly 150 TV panels scheduled this year, highlighting their most anticipated, and which they’ll be giving a wide berth. Before that, though, Noel and Kate read out some listener feedback and talk through the week’s TV: The Detour, grown-ish, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Holey Moley, Claws, and Elementary. What are you looking forward to at Comic-Con this year, and which shows do you wish were making the trek to San Diego? Take a listen, then reach out with your picks.SDCC 2019 TV Preview (1:04:17)Our Week in TV The Detour (22:21) grown-ish (29:56) Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD (37:41) Holey Moley (44:21) Claws (49:37) Elementary (55:23)Music Featured: “Never Knew Love Like This Before” by Stephanie Mills; “The Comic-Con Song!” by Alex Goyette, Mikey Bolts, and Joey Buss, originally made for AwesomenessTV
PanGeekery is a weekly geek news podcast devoted to keeping you up to date with all the latest movies, shows, comics, games, and fandoms. We cover all things geek from an all-diverse perspective!Our hosts Earl Baylon, Kaitlyn Fae, Walter Talens, and Jenapher Zheng come from a range of creative fields and interests, and are each thoughtful and witty to boot- hilarity will DEFINITELY ensue. For this weeks’ episode, we cover: News: Sera & Royal Stars Comic Book, Frozen II Trailer, Hunger Games Prequel, Castlevania Season 3! Main topics: We breakdown Godzilla! Special Guest: Yulin Kuang is an LA-based screenwriter and director. She is currently writing the comedy feature Jade Palace for New Line Cinema and was most recently the creator and showrunner of I Ship It, an original musical comedy series premiering on The CW on August 19. She was nominated for a 2019 WGA Award for her work on Love Daily, a romance anthology series for AwesomenessTV (now streaming on Hulu). Previously, Yulin created two YouTube channels - YulinisWorking and Shipwrecked Comedy - that have each amassed over 2 million views per channel, for original scripted webseries (Kissing in the Rain, A Tell Tale Vlog) and short films (The Perils of Growing Up Flat-Chested, Angie + Zahra). Her work has been featured on Nerdist, Huffington Post, IndieWire and Buzzfeed. Yulin is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. She has two cats named Eloise and Canary. And we play a game of "Geeky Truth or Dare!" Big thanks to our crew! Dir: Rodney Cajudo Stage Director/assistant production co-ordinator: Arnold Basingat BTS: Mark Tecson PA: Edward Biag PC: Aaron Redman Special thanks to Pilipino Workers Center, Homer Dulu, Peterson Gonzaga
Gregg L. Witt is a partner and Chief Strategy Officer at Engage Youth Co., where he leads the strategy and consumer engagement programs for brands targeting youth audiences. Gregg has been immersed in the business of youth culture since the age of 16 when he started his first company, Goodtimes Skateboards. Despite adult naysayers, Witt took the company to global distribution in its first year; this early success ignited a passion and respect for the power of subcultures. Never content to just ‘know it when he sees it’, Witt has dedicated his career to a focused examination of the wisdom and authenticity inherent in today’s youth, while guiding others on how they might, respectfully, do the same. With over 16 years of experience in youth insights, brand strategy, and marketing activation, he is a renowned cultural marketing strategist and international public speaker. In 2016, he was named a Top Youth Marketer To Follow by Inc. Magazine, and in 2017 made the Forbes list of leading Generation Z experts. In 2018 he co-authored the Gen Z Frequency for Kogan Page, a comprehensive guide to engaging youth culture. He frequently appears in national media as a youth trends expert. A shortlist of past clients include Autodesk, AwesomenessTV, College Board, Cooper Tires, FunnyOrDie, Glaceau Vitamin Water, HBO, Hollister, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, Procter & Gamble, Qualcomm, and The Walt Disney Company.
This week Joe Cox interviews Gregg Witt about the current state of youth marketing in 2019.Gregg is an entrepreneur, brand strategist author and speaker known for his profound work in youth culture. We’ll be talking a lot about the recent book he published 'The Gen Z Frequency' a super comprehensive Playbook for brands and marketers wanting to gain attention from the generation that’ll make up 40% of total US consumer spending by 2020. He’s worked on the brand, agency and consultancy side of a ton of brands we all know FunnyOrDie, AwesomenessTV, Walt Disney World, Vitamin Water, Nissan, and Carhart WIP to name a few.We talk about: * Gregg’s past in the skateboarding world of the early 90s * How the current social media environment mirrors the energy of early skate culture. * How Gen Z is different than millennials. * Building a playbook for Genz marketing * The famous Nike story of entering the skateboard culture in the 90s with the introduction of the SB Dunk. This story has always been spoken about but was first published in Gregg’s book. * How brands like Red Bull and Nike enter cultures and where brands get it right and wrong. * Social media and Gen Z * The three things that social brands should look out for when trying to attract Gen Z.
If you have seen the Hulu Original comedy series 'Quick Draw' you already know how hilarious Alexia Dox is. Now she stars in the new AwesomenessTV series 'Overthinking with Kat & June' where a strange but beautiful friendship is formed between two new housemates. Was the vagina art her character takes selfies in front of made specifically for the show? She'll give us all of the juicy behind the scene details. Alexia Dox and fellow lead Tenea Intriago have incredible chemistry and just steal the show. 'Overthinking with Kat & June' is the NEW buddy comedy to watch. Listen here then check out the episodes on AwesomenessTV. Watch the Trailer Here: Subscribe to the Channel/Premium to get the full episodes. Have questions or comments for el L.A. w/ Jake & Lenny? Email us: ella.dashradio@gmail.com Hosts: Jake & Lenny
The digital studio's president gets candid about the acquisitions she's made in her first year on the job, as well as Viacom's efforts to attract young eyeballs to original content across digital platforms.
The digital studio's president gets candid about the acquisitions she's made in her first year on the job, as well as Viacom's efforts to attract young eyeballs to original content across digital platforms.
Here’s your quick Headstart on three business headlines you need to know for Monday, July 30th, 2018. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Jason Hellerman talks to Cody Brotter about writing a screenplay on BU’s campus (that ended up getting on The Black List and ultimately produced by AwesomenessTV and starred Bella Thorne), seeing his film ("Shovel Buddies") on the big screen at the SXSW Film Festival, working for Hollywood producer Michael Costigan, volunteering at Young Storytellers, and the importance of diversifying the entertainment industry.
Cuarto programa de Sobre Radio, el podcast para profesionales de radio. Hoy responderemos a una pregunta que nos enviaba Máximo Tell de Cadena 3 en Argentina: ¿Cuáles son las principales motivaciones que llevan a un grupo de radio a producir su propio contenido exclusivo para podcasts? María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros, jefa del proyecto Podium Podcast de Prisa en España y Annick van der Leeuw, editora jefe de BNR Podcast en Países Bajos comparten con nosotros sus experiencias. Tommy Ferraz explica por qué no cree que el dispositivo de moda, el smart speaker o altavoz inteligente, vaya a tener tanto impacto en el futuro de la radio como otros profesionales y expertos aseguran. Por cierto, si has escuchado el programa y quieres consultar algunos de los estudios consultados por Tommy, aquí tienes los enlaces: Artículo de The Guardian sobre un informe de Ofcom acerca de consumo de televisión en público joven Statista.com, fuente The Nielsen Total Audience Report 2017 Business Insider sobre informe de Trendera acerca de consumo de televisión entre adolescentes, encargado por AwesomenessTV. Estudio Gen-Z de Google sobre uso del smartphone. Informe MIDAS Spring 2018 sobre consumo de audio de Rajar. Estudio Adults’ media use and attitudes 2017, de Ofcom. Artículo en MakeUseOf.com sobre uso de redes sociales entre adolescentes.
On this week’s Digiday Podcast, YouTube network AwesomenessTV president Brett Bouttier joined us to discuss programming on YouTube and the emerging post-cable world. Awesomeness TV is doing programming for YouTube Red, but Bouttier said the platform is still in experimentation phase.
Rahart Adams & Rickey Thompson join #NoFilter with Zack Peter to drop some juicy details about the new season of YouTube Red's 'Foursome' (starring Jenn McAllister & Logan Paul) – streaming now. Rahart shares the time he went thong shopping at Target, being the protective older brother, and getting dating advice from Jenn. Rickey shares what's in store for Dakota this season (and his suitors), cast dynamics behind-the-scenes, and taking over his friends' Tinder profiles. Keep up with Rahart at @rahart_adams and Rickey at @rickeythompson. Keep up with the latest show news on AwesomenessTV: http://bit.ly/2gCojTl Catch the new season of 'Foursome' now streaming on YouTube Red: https://www.youtube.com/red Special thank you to Maria Menounos, Keven Undergaro, and the AfterBuzz TV Network. Like the show? Subscribe at: http://apple.co/1IvZ0ZW and listen every Wednesday. Don’t forget to leave us a nice review! Couldn’t get enough of us? Follow Zack @justplainzack on Twitter and Instagram and justplainzack.com Watch Zack on AfterBuzz TV live Wednesdays (http://bit.ly/2xxvoPZ) and Thursdays (http://bit.ly/2gaQHzt) or on YouTube at www.youtube.com/justplainzack Keep up with Zack on POPSUGAR: http://bit.ly/2zAKdxO Order your copy of Zack’s book, When Life Hands You Lemons…Throw Them At People! now at: http://amzn.to/2j386u1 And don’t forget to give us your validation: Facebook.com/justplainzack
Alexis Joy of AlexisJoyVipAccess.com and AwesomenessTv.com is the epitome of awesomeness. We’re pretty sure there isn’t anything she can’t do. We talk about how her hosting career came to be, managing work while being a full-time student (seriously, not kidding), working hard, being persistent, manifesting, making your dreams a reality, being inspired by our previous guest, Keltie Knight, her red carpet wish list and so much more. Don’t forget, you can EARN EXTRA KARMA POINTS by subscribing and leaving us a five-star review on iTunes. All you have to do is click the Ratings and Reviews tab. Then, Click Write A Review. Then actually write a review. In the Podcasts App, search for the podcast even though you already subscribe, then click Ratings and Reviews. Click Write A Review. Write about how much you love being a Bloguette. It might not show up immediately, but just Ali going to an event, she’ll get there eventually. Follow Alexis On Social Media https://twitter.com/alexisjoyvipacc https://twitter.com/thealexisjoy https://www.instagram.com/thealexisjoy/ Ali’s Website http://alilevine.com/ Get Styled By Ali http://alilevinestyling.com Amanda’s Blog http://www.itsamandalauren.com/ Follow Ali on Social Media https://twitter.com/AliLevineDesign https://www.instagram.com/alilevinedesign Follow Amanda on Social Media https://twitter.com/AmandaLauren https://www.instagram.com/itsamandalauren Consider this your invitation to join our closed Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/122231558366329/ Want to collab? Write us love letters? Please email thingsweretoolazytoblogabout@gmail.com Like us on Facebook because we really want to be liked. https://www.facebook.com/thingsweretoolazytoblogaboutpodcast --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lazypod/support
How do you consume video? Do you mostly watch network TV? Have you ditched the cable box in favor of digital-only companies like Netflix and Hulu? Or maybe you exclusively take in short-form clips online through social sites like YouTube, Facebook, or Snapchat. No matter how you watch video, you can bet it’s different from how you did it 10 years ago. The landscape is changing. Joining me on the show today is Liza Glucoft. Liza is a senior digital content creator, showrunner, producer, and director with nearly 10 years experience. She has been at the forefront of a lot of different digital companies, from FX to Who, What, Where to PopSugar and Conde Nast. She’s now the Executive Producer of Programming at AwesomenessTV. Listen as Liza shares her insights into the transformation of the video content landscape, how younger audiences consume content, and finally, how women can support one another and build each other up professionally. In This Episode How the video landscape has evolved in recent years Gen Z’s content preferences How female producers can lift up the generations coming after them Ways to stay on top of your work when it has a hundred moving parts Important characteristics for members of a high-functioning team Quotes in This Episode “Digital is in full force now so it's nice. It's nice to be in a place where people are recognizing now that this is the way people consume content.” —Liza Glucoft “[Young audiences] are more concerned with feeling like a part of the experience and feeling like what they're watching is authentic and not staged and set up.” —Liza Glucoft “Women are realizing they can be boss bitches or whatever it is, girl bosses, but there is this final top layer that's almost impossible to penetrate. And it's tough.” —Liza Glucoft “That is so important to me, us all helping each other and helping younger women find their voice too. That's one of the most fulfilling parts of my job now is… there are some younger female producers I work with, and I feel like I get to help them find their voice in a way maybe a male producer couldn't do.” —Liza Glucoft “People just get scared of failure. They get scared someone's going to get mad at them… I think changing the dialogue for people and making them feel more empowered [is important] because, honestly, men don't apologize all the time. They don't feel the need to be like, ‘Oh sorry. I messed up.’” —Liza Glucoft Resources AwesomenessTV AwesomenessTV on YouTube Liza Glucoft on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram
Popcorn Talk, the online broadcast network that features movie discussion, news, interviews, & commentary, proudly presents "Millennial Hollywood with Dakota T. Jones". Each episode, Dakota will feature a special guest while discussing aspects of finding success in the Hollywood industry. They will share their stories while teaching you how to find the secret to becoming a successful millennial. On this weeks episode, Dakota welcomes the cast of t@gged! Lia, Lulu, & JC return for season 2 of AwesomenessTV’s hit show “T@gged”. The show is about a psychopath who sends a series of violent videos that target Hailey, Rowan and Elisia - a group of high school students whose pasts are inexplicably connected. The antagonist is an unknown person who goes by the screen name “monkeyman”. T@gged is a modern day thriller that explores the terrifying risks of social media in a world of anonymity. With the release of season 2, the show gets darker, sexier, & more terrifying
Matthew Levin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Donut Media, a next-generation media company for millennial car enthusiasts. Prior to Donut, Matt served as Head of Product at AwesomenessTV and as a Product Manager at software development firm Originate. In this episode, we discuss Matt’s film and product roots, which inform his “Get Things Done” and analytical mindset. We review the historical evolution of media, debate the causes of “platform death” (i.e. Myspace and Vine), and assess what digital media companies can learn from the traditional media playbook. Finally, we consider the media company of the future, and Matt reminds us that “If you’re not in the business of getting to the next thing first, you’re in the business of going out of business.” Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks... --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
AwesomenessTV CEO Brian Robbins talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about selling his company multiple times and making media aimed at teens. Robbins says Generation Z, which is more serious, multicultural and politically engaged than millennials, wants to see itself reflected more on the screen, and is actively creating content, not just consuming it. He discusses why it's important for people in media to talk about politics, how he looks at platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube, and why he's not interested in making content for virtual reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This month, we'll be uploading a new episode every day! We want to hear from you, so please send your questions and feedback to allthingsvideopodcast@gmail.com. You can also like and comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/allthingsvideo Follow All Things Video on LinkedIn for the latest episodes and updates! http://bit.ly/allthingsvideolinkedin This is the second episode in a four-part history of MCNs. We discuss the early MCN land grab to sign top talent and reach massive scale, driven by players like Machinima, Maker Studios, Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV, and StyleHaul. During this early period, MCNs monetized primarily through YouTube ad revenue, brand deals, and some original productions. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates... --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Los Angeles is a pretty magical city! In this episode, Thais + Bri diverge from their usual topics and have fun sharing their thoughts about celebrities, regrets and their favorite things about Los Angeles. They are joined by LA expert Gwen Paja where you will learn about growing a blog, being a passionate woman, and fun LA tips. About The Guest Gwen Paja, founder of The LA Girl, is a marketing professional with a passion for editorial content, living a healthy lifestyle and inspiring other women. She is an LA native and is a self-proclaimed Los Angeles ambassador. When she's not at her day job at AwesomenessTV or working on The LA Girl, she enjoys doing yoga, hiking mountains, traveling the world and spending time with her fiance, Luke, and their dog, Pucci. Top Three Takeaways Purpose, passion and balance are crucial to living an amplified life. Growing a thriving blog while balancing a full time job is possible with the right tools! Los Angeles is the best city in the world! Links You'll Love Sign up to get access to our upcoming events Info on our Coterie group TheLAgirl.com The LA Girl on Twitter The LA Girl on Facebook The LA Girl on Instagram PS. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast + leave us a review and rating to spread the AMPLIFY message to the world! We simply cannot succeed without your support! Simply visit: bit.ly/beamplified
This episode examines the differences in production, formats, and distribution between traditional and digital video. We also discuss the central thesis of the online video revolution: that the resources of production have been democratized and online video platforms have, for the first time, established a two-way communication channel between creators and audiences. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Paladin, the premier technology provider for multi-channel networks and digital media companies, including Maker Studios, AwesomenessTV, Studio71, and more. The Paladin platform streamlines processes, increases efficiency, and grows revenue for media companies that represent more than 200,000 content creators and a collective 15 billion monthly views. Visit paladinsoftware.com to learn more or request a product demo. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
This month, we'll be uploading a new episode every day! We want to hear from you, so please send your questions and feedback to allthingsvideopodcast@gmail.com. You can also like and comment on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/allthingsvideo Follow All Things Video on LinkedIn for the latest episodes and updates! http://bit.ly/allthingsvideolinkedin This episode evaluates 4 content archetypes prevalent in online video: casual, professional, branded, and syndicated content. We discuss the creative force (individual vs. corporate) and intended audience size (small vs. large) for each type, and we draw parallels to demonstrate what each group can learn from the others. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Paladin, the premier technology provider for multi-channel networks and digital media companies, including Maker Studios, AwesomenessTV, Studio71, and more. The Paladin platform streamlines processes, increases efficiency, and grows revenue for media companies that represent more than 200,000 content creators and a collective 15 billion monthly views. Visit paladinsoftware.com to learn more or request a product demo. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Today, we're tackling impostor syndrome with Sarah Penna, Head of Awestruck, a new network and lifestyle brand from AwesomenessTV. Imposter syndrome may seem simple, but it's about a lot more than feeling like a fraud. Do you find yourself feeling like you know your stuff, but you're always looking over your shoulder? Do you worry others are about to catch up to you? Achieving your dreams doesn't always loosen the pressure valve or stave off FOMO. Few people know this better than Sarah, who built and sold her first business all before she turned 30.
Lee Essner is the President and COO of Jukin Media, a global entertainment company powered by user-generated video content. Jukin receives more than one billion monthly views across digital platforms and is the leader in discovering, acquiring, and curating the web's most compelling UGC videos for brands and media companies to license for commercial use.In this episode, Lee recounts his transition from a corporate attorney to an early-stage startup employee and later, founder of his own company. He offers advice for those in transactional roles who want to become operators, encourages entrepreneurs to be realistic (“hope should not be part of the strategy”), and reminds us that it’s just as important what you say “No” to than what you say “Yes” to. Finally, he predicts continued global growth in the online video industry and the transformative impact of VR and live streaming.Host: James CreechABOUT THE SHOWAll Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates!ABOUT THE HOSTJames Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies.OUR SPONSORThis episode is brought to you by Paladin, the premier technology provider for multi-channel networks and digital media companies, including Maker Studios, AwesomenessTV, Studio71, and more. The Paladin platform streamlines processes, increases efficiency, and grows revenue for media companies that represent more than 200,000 content creators and a collective 15 billion monthly views. Visit paladinsoftware.com to learn more or request a product demo. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Brett Ulrich (Head of Engineering at AwesomenessTV) and Rico Moorer (VP Video at Blavity) share their experience building software at next-generation media companies. In this episode, we discuss the challenges in creating software for online video companies, particularly platform dependency for feature access and data availability. Brett and Rico offer tips for evaluating external vendors, handling software implementations, and avoiding product failures. They also highlight some of the industry’s existing technology gaps and predict the convergence of crowded product areas like SVOD, influencer marketing, and live streaming. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by TubeBuddy, the complete toolkit for YouTube channel management. This power-packed browser extension helps with everything from bulk metadata edits and trending keyword suggestions to thumbnail optimization, fan engagement tools, and so much more. Visit TubeBuddy.com to meet your new best friend on YouTube. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
In our first All Things Video News episode, we discuss online video’s impact on political and social justice issues. Online video services like Periscope and Facebook Live broadcast the Congressional sit-in, the death of Philando Castile, and the Orlando and Dallas shootings. And these social networks are now creating a forum for debate about gun control, the Black Lives Matter movement, and police brutality. We examine the role social platforms should play in how we receive and interpret news coverage, and finally we consider whether social influencers have a moral responsibility to urge their audiences to action.Hosts: Luke Wang & Jackie KoppellABOUT THE SHOWAll Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates!ABOUT THE HOSTSLuke Wang is a digital consultant and entrepreneur in the online video business. Most recently, he spent two years as VP of Business Operations at Omnia Media, a YouTube MCN that generates two billion views per month. Prior to joining Omnia, Luke worked at CAA and then served as a Network Affiliate Manager at Machinima.Jackie Koppell is a digital media consultant and the Founder of Pinnacle, a dinner and event series for leaders and visionaries in the entertainment industry. Prior to Pinnacle, Jackie served as the Head of Talent at AwesomenessTV. She is also the creator and host of the political satire show Newsy News.OUR SPONSORThis episode is brought to you by Feldspar Ventures, an incubator studio that transforms early stage media properties into multi-medium entertainment franchises. Their team is passionate about transforming a creator’s vision into reality and commercial success. To learn more, visit feldsparventures.com. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
In the third Coolfire'd Up podcast, Coolfire President David Johnson and the VP of Digital Jeremy Corray talk all about their recent trip to the STREAM Video Summit -- a mini-convention where platforms and players in the digital video industry come together and share insights and predications into the future. They'll be discussing what they took away from meeting with platforms such as Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV, Playboy, New Form Digital and more. Be sure to subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode of Coolfire'd Up!
Kelly Day is the Chief Digital Officer at next-generation studio and teen content powerhouse AwesomenessTV. Kelly has held marketing and consulting roles at Fortune 500 companies, led e-commerce growth at AOL and Discovery, and built several successful brands in the digital video space. From 2012 to 2013, she led Blip through a turnaround and eventual sale to Maker Studios, before joining the leadership team at AwesomenessTV. In this episode, we dive into Kelly’s role building the AwesomenessTV brand, leading the company’s international expansion, and brokering distribution partnerships with SVOD and OTT platforms. We also discuss AwesomenessTV’s hub channel approach in comparison with other MCN and next-gen publisher business models, and we debate why brands rushed to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter but initially struggled to understand and invest in YouTube. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Epidemic Sound, the company reimagining music licensing for the digital age. Epidemic’s library contains tens of thousands of tracks that you can license a la carte or on a subscription basis. Unlike other music licensing companies, Epidemic Sound owns its entire catalogue and makes tracks available via one straightforward license to cover all your needs, worldwide and in perpetuity – no more headaches around usage reporting, performance royalties, or murky rights ownership. It’s better for the artists and better for you, the creator. So whatever your music needs, www.epidemicsound.com has got you covered! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Sarah Penna is the Head of Awestruck, a network and lifestyle brand for millennial moms. Sarah started her career at CurrentTV and then made her way into the YouTube space, working early on with Philip DeFranco. In 2011, Sarah founded talent management company Big Frame with Steve Raymond, which was acquired by AwesomenessTV in April 2014 for $15M. In this episode, Sarah talks about Al Gore’s “rockstar” moments at CurrentTV, her first encounter with popular YouTube personalities, and what motivated her to launch Big Frame, one of the first talent management firms for digital influencers. We also hear about Sarah’s journey as an entrepreneur, from picking the right co-founder to dealing with the “trough of sorrow” and ultimately going through diligence to sell the company. Hosts: Jackie Koppell and James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOSTS Jackie Koppell is a digital media consultant and the Founder of Pinnacle, a dinner and event series for leaders and visionaries in the entertainment industry. Prior to Pinnacle, Jackie served as the Head of Talent at AwesomenessTV. She is also the creator and host of the political satire show Newsy News. James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Epidemic Sound, the company reimagining music licensing for the digital age. Epidemic’s library contains tens of thousands of tracks that you can license a la carte or on a subscription basis. Unlike other music licensing companies, Epidemic Sound owns its entire catalogue and makes tracks available via one straightforward license to cover all your needs, worldwide and in perpetuity – no more headaches around usage reporting, performance royalties, or murky rights ownership. It’s better for the artists and better for you, the creator. So whatever your music needs, www.epidemicsound.com has got you covered! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Mike Pusateri is the Founder & CEO of Bent Pixels, a global media company serving creators and brands. As a top 25 MCN with over 24,000 creators and one billion monthly views, Bent Pixels represents celebrities like Kevin Hart and Joe Rogan as well as online video creators in the gaming and comedy verticals. Bent Pixels also offers content claiming and audience development services for brands, including FUNimation, RLJ Entertainment, Live Nation, and more. James Creech is the Co-Founder & CEO of Paladin Software, the premier technology provider for MCNs and next-generation media companies, including Maker Studios, AwesomenessTV, Studio71, DEFY Media, Frederator Networks, and more. The Paladin platform helps digital video networks streamline processes, increase efficiency, and grow revenue. In this episode, we discuss the humble beginnings of Bent Pixels, the growth of its software licensing business, and the launch of Paladin Software as an independent technology company. Mike and James explain how both companies have grown without outside capital and responded to constant change in the online video industry by learning from each failure and quickly adapting. Mike boldly calls out VR, saying “I don’t get it” – unconvinced that consumers will wear bulky headsets. And James predicts continued growth in viewer engagement and the eventual rise of consolidated media distribution channels. Host: Jackie Koppell ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST Jackie Koppell is a digital media consultant and the Founder of Pinnacle, a dinner and event series for leaders and visionaries in the entertainment industry. Prior to Pinnacle, Jackie served as the Head of Talent at AwesomenessTV. She is also the creator and host of the political satire show Newsy News. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Epidemic Sound, the company reimagining music licensing for the digital age. Epidemic’s library contains tens of thousands of tracks that you can license a la carte or on a subscription basis. Unlike other music licensing companies, Epidemic Sound owns its entire catalogue and makes tracks available via one straightforward license to cover all your needs, worldwide and in perpetuity – no more headaches around usage reporting, performance royalties, or murky rights ownership. It’s better for the artists and better for you, the creator. So whatever your music needs, www.epidemicsound.com has got you covered! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Jackie Koppell (former Head of Talent at AwesomenessTV) and Jordan Worona (Talent Manager at Studio71, formerly Collective Digital Studio) join the All Things Video podcast for a discussion about talent management in the world of digital influencers. This episode serves as an introduction to talent management and highlights the differences between working with talent in the traditional and digital worlds. We dig into the business of talent management to understand the key players involved and the various revenue streams available to online influencers. Finally, we reflect on the evolution of the digital influencer space and share some predictions for what’s coming next. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders from the world’s leading video networks and engage in thought-provoking debates about the key issues shaping the next generation of entertainment. From the short-form content revolution to the rise of multi-channel networks (MCNs) and the fragmentation of video viewership in an always-on world, All Things Video reveals the key trends and insights from the world of digital video. Subscribe for new episodes and updates! ABOUT THE HOST James Creech is an entrepreneur focused on technology, online video, and digital media. He currently serves as the SVP, Growth for Bent Pixels, the premier technology provider for the world's leading video networks and next-generation media companies. OUR SPONSOR This episode is brought to you by Epidemic Sound, the company reimagining music licensing for the digital age. Epidemic’s library contains tens of thousands of tracks that you can license a la carte or on a subscription basis. Unlike other music licensing companies, Epidemic Sound owns its entire catalogue and makes tracks available via one straightforward license to cover all your needs, worldwide and in perpetuity – no more headaches around usage reporting, performance royalties, or murky rights ownership. It’s better for the artists and better for you, the creator. So whatever your music needs, www.epidemicsound.com has got you covered! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Parker Jones is the Head of International at AwesomenessTV. Parker worked at YouTube during the early days of the partner program before moving over to build and manage the creator network at AwesomenessTV, which quickly grew to one of the world's largest MCNs with over 90,000 channels. In this episode, we discuss the proliferation of online video platforms, and the resulting competition for creators, audience, and advertiser budgets. We also cover AwesomenessTV’s international expansion plans, the MCN industry’s move toward lower revenue shares and shorter or “open” contracts, the rise of digital influencers in feature films (examples: Camp Dakota, The SMOSH Movie), and Facebook’s decision to match the terms of the YouTube partner program. Host: James Creech ABOUT THE SHOW All Things Video is a podcast dedicated to uncovering the past and charting the future of the online video ecosystem. Listen to interviews with founders, executives, and thought leaders... --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
Discover the book that is helping thousands of indie filmmakers finance their own movies... as we speak with Author/Filmmaker, Mark Freiburger on this episode of The Doorpost Podcast Project! Bio: MARK FREIBURGER graduated from the UNCSA School of Filmmaking in 2005. He directed the indie films JIMMY and DOG DAYS OF SUMMER, as well as the Los Angeles premiere of 110 STORIES at the Geffen Playhouse, which starred Academy- Award nominee John Hawkes, Ed Asner, Katherine McPhee and many others. In 2013 he won the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest with his commercial Fashionista Daddy, which was the #1 ranked :30 spot of the 2013 Super Bowl on the USA Today poll. In 2014, Fashionista Daddy was named the Greatest Super Bowl Commercial of All Time by network CBS in a countdown of the 10 Greatest Commercials in Super Bowl History. Immediately following the 2013 Super Bowl, Freiburger shadowed director Michael Bay on TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION in an exclusive mentorship. During Freiburger's mentorship on the film, he worked on the set with Bay in the United States and Hong Kong. He also worked with the Visual FX team from George Lucas' company Industrial Light & Magic, and shadowed various aspects of the VFX post- production in San Francisco. Following TRANSFORMERS, he went on in 2014 to direct comedy spots for Nickelodeon, DreamWorksTV, AwesomenessTV and a pair of comedy sketches with actors Rebel Wilson and Ken Jeong. He is currently writing an action thriller for producer Neal Moritz' production company, Original Film, the producers behind the FAST & FURIOUS, and 21/22 JUMP STREET franchises. Freiburger is also attached to direct the film, which will shoot in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Freiburger is repped by Gotham Group and United Talent Agency.
Dreamworks Animation acquires AwesomenessTV, Billy on the Street video, and the YouTube shower curtain. Hosts: Lamarr Wilson, Chad (OMGchad) Johnson, and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-youtube. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes. Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Dreamworks Animation acquires AwesomenessTV, Billy on the Street video, and the YouTube shower curtain. Hosts: Lamarr Wilson, Chad (OMGchad) Johnson, and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-youtube. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes. Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Dreamworks Animation acquires AwesomenessTV, Billy on the Street video, and the YouTube shower curtain. Hosts: Lamarr Wilson, Chad (OMGchad) Johnson, and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-youtube. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes. Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Dreamworks Animation acquires AwesomenessTV, Billy on the Street video, and the YouTube shower curtain. Hosts: Lamarr Wilson, Chad (OMGchad) Johnson, and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-youtube. We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes. Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
