Foundr Journal publishes in-depth interviews with the world’s best entrepreneurs. Our articles spotlight key takeaways from every month’s problem. We talked with Cody Ko and Noel Miller about evolving from content material creators to enterprise house owners. To learn extra, obtain the journal.
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At 3am on a weeknight, Cody Ko and Noel Miller discovered themselves sitting on a sofa between Submit Malone and Elon Musk. After assembly up with Malone on the Rainbow Bar & Grill in West Hollywood, the 2 YouTubers accepted the musician’s invite to hitch his entourage at Musk’s home.
“It’s simply us, Submit, his of us, after which Elon. He’s actually good there. And we didn’t say a lot to him exterior of, ‘Hey,’” Ko says. “Sooner or later, we felt it was time for us to go.”
However they couldn’t get out.
“We didn’t understand how the hell to get out of there, so… Cody’s like, ‘I need to ask the place the entrance door is,’” Miller says. “That’s how loopy this home was [that] you don’t know the place the entrance door is.”
The 2 pals walked into the kitchen and located Musk and then-girlfriend Grimes embraced in an intimate second.
“And Cody’s like, ‘I feel we’ll simply determine it out,’” Miller says, chuckling as he reminisces in regards to the evening.
How did two former co-workers turned content material creators discover themselves partying at Musk’s home?
By making one another snort.
Ko and Miller are the creators of the Tiny Meat Gang podcast and TMG Studios, a manufacturing firm. The duo first rose to web fame on Vine. They’re now among the most profitable YouTubers on this planet, with near 12 million subscribers throughout their channels. Their reputation has spawned stay excursions, stand-up exhibits, music, and international model partnerships with corporations like eBay.
We chatted with the content material creators to find out how they navigated the previous decade of web leisure to construct a enterprise on laughs.
Meat Cute
Watching a TMG manufacturing is like hanging out with the category clowns out of your highschool. Subjects vary from absurd popular culture commentary to self-deprecating antidotes.
However behind the YouTube lights, Ko and Miller have constructed their careers with an entrepreneurial mindset—as a result of they needed to.
Miller first found Ko on the defunct short-form video platform Vine. On the time, Ko had 5 million followers, together with Miller, who labored a day job as a developer.
Just a few months later, a spot opened up on Miller’s dev group. The brand new man was Ko.
“Cody walks within the door, and he sits proper in entrance of me. And our media creation began on our lunch breaks,” Miller says. “You possibly can truly return and see us wanting corny as hell in our early engineering careers, messing round on our lunch breaks.”
In 2016, Vine introduced it was shutting down, and Ko was scrambling to transition his viewers to YouTube. Miller already had a presence on YouTube doing sketch comedy, so that they determined to merge as a unit known as Tiny Meat Gang.
“Each of us had been inventive individuals and needed to do stuff exterior of simply software program programming, so we might meet up after work, make movies collectively, after which make s*** on our personal,” Ko says. “And we had been in a position to construct an viewers that method to the purpose the place we may do it full-time.”
That time additionally coincided with life circumstances. Miller misplaced his job, and Ko wanted to replace his inexperienced card. So that they determined to make TMG their new job.
Within the fall of 2017, they launched their YouTube podcast of the identical identify, and the collaboration remains to be the bedrock of TMG.
“After we began our podcast, we each wanted an earnings from this, so we had to do that strategically, and we needed to make this work,” Ko says. “That angle, although, is what has actually labored for us.”
“After we began our podcast, we each wanted an earnings from this, so we had to do that strategically, and we needed to make this work.”
Then and now, the first methods to monetize on YouTube are merchandise, advertisements, and subscription companies like YouTube’s channel memberships or Patreon. However Ko and Miller say making a dwelling as a creator requires a lot greater than checking these containers.
“You truly need to deal with constructing that relationship together with your viewers and determining what it’s they like about you and the way they need to assist you versus earlier than. When Cody and I had been getting began, I feel it was a bit extra rinse [and] repeat,” Miller says.
Though their podcast made ends meet via Patreon, it was their reactionary video collection That’s Cringe that made TMG a YouTube staple. Reactionary movies are a format the place creators movie themselves reacting to a different video. The collection solidified Ko and Miller as elite YouTubers, permitting them to rent brokers and acquire extra monetization via model partnerships.
Essentially the most profitable That’s Cringe installment is 5 years previous. It’s a single shot of Ko and Miller in a half-unpacked condo, watching and commenting on a fellow YouTube channel known as Woman Outlined. To this point, the video has 33 million views.
“There are individuals who perhaps simply obtained into school [who] are simply discovering that video,” Miller says. “I could stroll out of the venue, and so they’re like, ‘Dude, that Woman Outlined video is so humorous. That’s how I discovered you.’”
Miller laughs when followers touch upon their previous video as a result of he says they had been such completely different individuals again then.
“In the event you’re rising and studying and growing, you sort of all the time have to take a look at your self prior to now like, ‘What are you doing?’” Ko says.
“In the event you’re rising and studying and growing, you sort of all the time have to take a look at your self prior to now like, ‘What are you doing?’
The self-deprecation has helped make TMG relatable to audiences. However Ko and Miller consider you by no means actually “make it” in leisure. As an alternative, it’s all in regards to the subsequent snort.
“You by no means actually know what’s going to occur, however I feel we had been keen to maintain going till one thing did occur,” Ko says.
The Community
The recognition of That’s Cringe gave Ko and Miller the positioning to be full-time creators. However they’ve all the time stayed centered on the enterprise facet of the trade.
“There are such a lot of unknowns nonetheless within the creator financial system,” Ko says. “I feel it’s a studying course of. From the start, for us, we need to make nice stuff that folks like, after which we’ve obtained to determine the best way to earn a living from it.”
Of their enterprise, the cash is a way to the tip of amusing.
“If comedy is our product, then let’s work out the best way to convey extra comedy and extra leisure to individuals,” Ko says.
“If comedy is our product, then let’s work out the best way to convey extra comedy and extra leisure to individuals.”
In 2020, Ko and Miller reinvested of their product by launching the TMG Community. They constructed an expert studio and added a forged of latest hosts and exhibits, together with The Zach and Wahlid Present, Brooke and Connor Make a Podcast, Trillionaire Mindset, and a number of other spin-offs that includes the 2.
“It sort of appeared like this was the following frontier for us. I feel we each felt that naturally,” Ko says. “It was like, ‘Nicely, let’s begin a enterprise collectively and deal with it like a enterprise.’”
The idea of a community started a couple of years in the past when Miller began speaking on the podcast about his ardour for martial arts. Some individuals beloved it, whereas others didn’t care.
“I mentioned, ‘Oh, what if we created a tier on the Patreon and we begin producing completely different segments?’” Miller says. “Then I very distinctly keep in mind Cody saying, ‘Oh, like a community?’”
They tabled the thought, however by 2020, it made sense to go all-in on the community construction.
“As an alternative of on the finish of the 12 months taking the cash that we made as a dividend, let’s attempt to reinvest it again into the corporate and construct this factor in order that it may possibly outlast us,” Ko says.
Increasing right into a community meant rising the group to 30-plus individuals, a far cry from the easy setup of their condo again in 2017. Working a community additionally places extra weight on Ko and Miller’s inventive choices and dangers.
“Initially of any new enterprise, it’s scary, and I feel it must be,” Ko says.
“Initially of any new enterprise, it’s scary, and I feel it must be.”
The funding included multiplying their editors and producers to take the load off the manufacturing work, which Ko and Miller beforehand did themselves.
“After we began our podcast, it was simply us. We had been doing all the pieces. We had been shopping for the gear; we had been doing preproduction,” Ko says. “I’m grateful that we did that as a result of it taught us the best way to make a terrific present from the bottom up, so we knew the ins and outs of what it takes to do this.”
Scaling to a community meant Ko and Miller may deal with being on-camera and in enterprise conferences.
“That’s one thing that folks typically don’t notice once they see somebody posting tremendous usually,” Ko says. “They don’t see the infrastructure behind it that permits you to do this.”
