How To Scale To $100M As A Creator, Even If You're Just Starting | Tyler Chou

0:00Someone's going to file wrongful termination, sexual harassment, gender discrimination against you. And those are the big ticket items that every creator is going to get hit with that they're not thinking about. Tyler Chow, one of the most sought after creators attorneys in the world. Actually, in the midst of brokering a $100 million exit, my boss said, "Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. Your job is [music] safe." And of course, 3 months later, 12 of us were laid off. So, I said, "You know what? I'm just going to go start a law firm for creators." Is there a common mistake that you find often

0:28creatives go through? I think the biggest issue that I see is brands trying to take advantage with too much usage or [music] exclusivity. You know, I hit burnout la the end of last year. I think we wrap our self-worth in at the end of the day, I still feel like I didn't do anything, which is so messed

0:47up that our brains work that way. When does a creator know to take it to the next step and ask Tyler, hey, could you actually advise me on this? I have a client right now who [music] if I hadn't stepped into the deal, they would have showed him all the raw data. Oh my goodness. Right. I think through the last 3 years, I've just seen too many cases of [music] things going wrong. For instance, I really don't want you to miss any of our future episodes. I'm going to ask of you to subscribe and make sure you turn the notification bell on. This will only help us do more podcasts like this,

1:16bring on even better guests so that you can learn more from it. I love all of you guys and let's get back into it. Tyler, you're known as one of the largest creatives attorney. You've worked in Hollywood for a very long period of time. You literally represent some of the largest names in the creator space. But for those people that are listening in right now that may not know Tyler and my audience, why should they stick around to the end of this episode

1:38and learn from you? June, thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor. I love your content. And I think you're doing amazing things and helping creators and, you know, common lay people become creators and achieve their American dream. If you have ever said to yourself, "Is this my life? Am I going to make videos for the rest of my life because I'm approaching burnout? And I would like to know what else I can do. Can I sell my business for 30, 50, or $100 million?" That's what I do for some of the biggest and not actually I say a lot of big creators, but you'd be surprised. I have

2:13a client who's making a million a year and he has a h 100,000 on YouTube. Numbers don't mean everything, right? Um it's how deep you are with your audience. And so if you want to learn how you can sell your business as a creator, stick till the end. Yeah. For me, when I think of Hollywood and I did so much research on you and I look at everything that you've been able to achieve in your career, I'm like that is the pinnacle of success. And then you change your perspective onto the creator landscape, especially with YouTube. Can you talk about that transformation and

2:43where it ultimately came from? Sure. I mean, I know you're all about storytelling and sharing stories, so I'll share a story that I I haven't shared widely, which is I started my YouTube channel 3 and a half years ago because I had a midlife crisis. I had been the lead attorney on over 22 feature films at Disney, Sky Dance, Buzzfeed. And I asked myself, you know, what's my legacy? I mean, my kids are my greatest legacy, but what's my creative legacy? I went to Berkeley as an English major. I still dream of becoming a novelist. I I am writing a book right

3:13now, but I wanted something creative. So, I decided um I'm going to start a YouTube channel. So, I took Ali Abdal's part-time YouTube academy because I like frameworks and guidelines. I know you're all about frameworks. And so, uh Ali said, "If you make 50 videos in a year, you should hit a,000 subscribers." And so I took it and I made my first couple of videos and then I blew up and it got to 10,000 very quickly. But what that first year of being a creator showed me was how much I loved creating, but how

3:47much I also loved my fellow creators. And there were so many creators coming to me asking me, "Hey Tyler, can you look at this brand deal for me? Can you look at this for me?" And I was just blown away by how terribly predatory these agreements were. You would never find these agreements in Hollywood, you know, asking for their name and likeness, their format in perpetuity, you know, owning things that no brand, you know, or um production company should own, but I couldn't represent them because I was still working in Hollywood. I was at a private equity fund. I was a full-time attorney still, so I said no to them. But, you know, I

4:23think the universe is beautiful. And about a year later, I um the fund I was working for, Raven Capital, was acquired by MetLife and my boss said, "Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. Your job is safe." And of course, three months later, right, I think Metife took a look at the numbers and were thinking to and and we're like, "Films don't make much money, do they?" So, they shuttered the studios division. 12 of us were laid off

4:49and this was during the strike, right? to SAG in WGA strike and no one was hiring at my level. So I said, you know what, I'm just going to go start a law firm for creators. You know, my law firm is called Tyler Chow Law for Creators. My my focus has always been to protect creators. And I was kind of scared. So I went and asked some of my former colleagues in Hollywood. I said, "Hey, I'm thinking about starting a law firm

5:11create for creators. What do you think?" And every single one of them, June, said, "No, that's a terrible idea. Like there's no money in this space. You're just going to be babysitting kids." [laughter] And now three years later, I have three offers from the biggest law firms in Hollywood, right? Asking me to bring my book of business in. CIA tried to buy my M&A advisory business last year. And I have never been in this position, but I don't have to. Like I said, I said to my husband, I think last year, I said, you know, I'm never going to have to go to a man and ask for a job

5:44ever again. And that feeling of power and freedom is everything. And that's what I want for creators. I love that and the reason why I look up to you so much is because you are a working professional again who has achieved so much in your career and especially from an Asian background when you think about law you think about that is again the pinnacle of success but you still had the foresight of thinking I want to build a personal brand there are so many experts industry experts working professionals all the time that are in my DMs I get a chance to work with and they're thinking to themselves no I I

6:16want to do the safe route of actually just pursuing my career in front of me uh want to keep climbing that corporate ladder and they don't see personal branding for them. But you've been able to benefit from building your own personal brands and you're working on both sides of the table. You're obviously working with talent as well

6:31that have their own personal brands. Those working professionals that are listening in on this right now. Can you speak to the power of a personal brand and ultimately what it did for you? Well, I will tell you this. I didn't set out saying I'm going to go build a personal brand. Do you know what I mean? What I set out was to share the information that's in my head. And I wanted to empower and educate creators, letting them know, you know, these are your rights with brand deals. Like what what are our IP? You know, what's clean chain of title? Why should you have clean B-roll or clean music licenses in

7:05your content? It was it really came from from this mission of wanting to protect creators. Now, organically through time because I write a lot on LinkedIn, I write for Forbes, I speak all over the world at at creator conferences, that has just become um I guess part of my toolbox, right? Like now I go places and my kids are always surprised, but people will come up to me say, "I love your LinkedIn content and it's helped me so much and it helped me think about myself as a business." And I think for anyone who's listening, I mean, look, every CEO, the my favorite phrase right now, which I

7:42share with Christo on his podcast like a month ago, is every creator wants to become a company and every company wants to become a creator. Oh wow. Okay. Right. So you look, you remember the the McDonald CEO that that did that. Do you remember? He ate the burger. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Okay. That was rage bait. Like they knew exactly what they were doing. Like their social media team is super smart. But that that sort of is in line with you know every CEO is is trying to start a podcast. They're trying to write on LinkedIn. They're trying to build a personal brand because people want to buy from people. They

8:15don't want to buy from companies. And that is the power of having your own personal brand. And also it becomes your ability to be job proof, right? Like you don't need a job if you have a strong personal brand. like you can basically get work anywhere or get a brand deal or you know or make money in so many different ways outside of corporate

8:34America. And I want to segue into the idea of monetization. The reason why your content is the epitome of what the future era of creators should be looking at is you talk about owning your assets. Now I know from a creator's perspective that hamster wheel is quite tempting. You look at the oneoff brand deals and you're making the $5,000, the $10,000, the $15,000 and you're thinking, "Oh, I'm good. I'm making this source of income. Why else should I do anything else?" Right? So, you're in that position and what happens is that you start doing the same thing and it happens in the sick behavior. If you're

9:08constantly creating content and this can ultimately lead to burnout and then you look at, let's say you burn out 5 years down the line and you don't have any of these assets. If you stop creating content, then where's the money coming in from? Totally. And so for you when you talk about assets, I mean you're on the verge of doing a $100 million exit with one of your creators. Can you speak to me and the audience that's listening right now why it's so important for creators to have assets and where should they first

9:31start? Well, you know, I talk about this concept of being a tenant on YouTube's land on Meta's land. How many stories have you heard of people getting locked out of their Instagram pages or losing their Facebook pages? Facebook is doing major cleaning house right now. They're terminating channels. They're demonetizing some of the biggest creators. When you build on someone else's land, you know, we are guests and and I say I talk about YouTube a lot because a lot of my clients who are building real media companies are on YouTube. Um YouTube can kick you off at

10:08any time. Then what happens? You know, I was teaching a master class back in December. I was in a room with 10 of the biggest creator YouTubers in the world. all had over 10 million subscribers. And I asked them, I said, "How many of you have an email list of your audience?" Do you want to guess how many people

10:24raised their hands? A very small percentage, maybe 10% of the room. So, one person, right? And I said, "So, if your channels were to go down tomorrow, you would have no access to your audience. Who are your potential customers? You know, these these are the people who most loyal to you." And that's the problem, right? So, a lot of creators get into this hamster wheel of dopamine hits, right? They'll get a video and they're like, "Oh my god, I just I'm I'm going to make six figures from AdSense this this month and you know, you you say these five figures." Most of my clients are making

10:57six or seven figures with brand deals. So, they get very addicted to the to the dopamine of the AdSense and the brand deals. They don't think beyond that. Now I think because there's a maturing of the space and you hear about private equity fund coming into the space you hear about you know channels like Veritassium and Electric um Veritassium and Matpat being acquired so you're thinking oh maybe there is something more here but what is that like can and you know I was I just came back from Can Film Festival and this very established Hollywood producer asked me a really great question. And he's like, "So you

11:33sell YouTube channels? Like what does that mean? Like you're buying someone's face. Like isn't there a big He-Man risk there?" And there is, right? You can't buy a business that is dependent on someone's face. So the $und00 million, you know, business that I am in the process of I'm I'm in the middle of um selling one

11:55of my clients for $100 million. He has 15 revenue streams in addition to his YouTube channel, right? Any one of those, you know, his budgeting app, we could spin that off and sell that for 40 or $50 million. Like that is what buyers want. They want things especially SAS, like technical products, like if you have one of those in your in your arsenal of revenue streams, like that will make you very attractive to a buyer. conversation we had off camerara which I want everyone that's listening to this actually take from you is you told me that when a creative comes to you and thinking that they want to do an

12:30exit sometimes you actually advise them not to go for an exit and I want to hear from your perspective when do you say yes to let's go and pursue this exit versus let's not go ahead and do that so I think a lot of creators hear the concept of investors and an exit and it sounds very sexy right it means potentially I've made it right like somebody is going to validate my business and say that I built something valuable. Now, people tend to take investors because they need runway, because they need to grow their team, but a lot of creators are already cash positive, right? From their AdSense and

13:07brand deals, they could already be making seven figures. So, I ask them, well, why do you want an investor or why do you want an exit? Now, if you if you're saying to me, I'm totally burnt out and I need out in two to three years. Fair. That's probably a better exit. If you say like if you June say, "I love what I what I'm doing. I'm going to do this for 10 more years." You're probably not ready for an exit yet. You know, you're you're you're loving what you're

13:32doing. And what creators don't realize is when you bring in a buyer or an investor, you're you're bringing in a boss that you've never had in your creator business. you're bringing in somebody or a bunch of people who are going to look over your shoulder and tell you how to make your content, how to sell your product, what how what you know what your um course or community should look like. You know, all of these things that you've just done on your own because you know your audience and you know what will connect with them. There's somebody who's going to be telling you how to think and how to act. And I think

14:05a lot of creators when I explain that to them, they say, "Oh, that's not very attractive to me. Right? And if you're if you're already cash positive and you're you continue to double, you know, your AR every year, like why do you need to bring in a buyer or an investor? It's such an important part of the conversation because a lot of these creatives, even myself, we started when we didn't necessarily have job experience. We weren't necessarily in the corporate landscape where we were

14:33accustomed to having bosses, right? And I've even seen this from the traditional managerial standpoint. When an agent steps in, they start to negotiate brand deals. Even creatives feel that's restricting because someone else for the very first time in their lives just saying you shouldn't create that type of content because it's not branded content and they hate that. Now imagine if you have an investor or someone that's going ahead and actually giving you money to do these experiences. That's a level of pressure that probably a lot of creatives don't want. And I'm so happy that you're actually bringing me into this because I want to use myself as a

15:03bit of a case study because I just want to learn from you in this experience. So you you talked about this idea of the keyman risk and I believe that the age of social media has transformed creatorled businesses. So for me I have created college and we have different businesses underneath it. So creative

15:18college sells multiple different offers. Now the marketing standpoint though does rely quite heavily on my personal brand across these different businesses that we have. We ultimately do have their own internal execution functions but I am still such a huge component of it. Now, there's a part of me that really enjoys that and loves it and I do want to be doing it, I think, for the next 10 plus years. But if I was playing exit, how do I go about navigating that experience so that I could potentially actually sell

15:45it at its full potential? So, one of the pillars that, you know, I talk about and and I'm actually launching a creator exit accelerator soon. So, one one of the five pillars I talk about is actually your team, right? So when a buyer looks at a creator business or any business really you know what are they really looking at and one of it is what is your team comprised of you know what is your talent you know Steven Barlet talks about this a lot you know he is nothing without his his team could your team run the business without you like that's a very important threshold question and if

16:18the answer is yes then great your key man risk is much lower than you think you're just marketing you know for the business could it run without you now Ali Abdal is a great example of this. He has a big team of people, you know, coaches who run his his his cohorts where he doesn't need to be there. You know, he went from this stage where he started with live cohorts where he was on twice a week and he burnt out. I mean, he talks about this very openly and so now he only does like pre-recorded, you know, content, which I I think doesn't do as well for him, but

16:49he just needed to choose like between quality of life and and building out his business. And I think in the beginning, first few years, that was okay. And for a lot of creators, it's going to feel okay. But as you hit the five or six year mark, which is where we're at with co, you know, a lot of people got their start during co and I'm hearing from a lot of creators saying, I'm tired and I'm approaching burnout and I need

17:14to figure out what's next for me. You know I experienced that quite intimately because I also started in COVID and running creator le brands it is a completely different level of intensity than just being a creative. You have operations on a regular basis. You're truly running a business and we have now a team of 23 24 people that are regulating this these processes and you have to be associated with that and it's not an easy experience whatsoever. But people listen to our conversation, they think, "All right, that's the big picture." But we actually have a lot of aspiring creatives, people that may have watched my content, may have watched

17:53your content, they're interested in this experience, and maybe they've built somewhat of an audience, but what is that first product that you would encourage them to start developing? Because obviously, yes, it could be great to have three or four different income streams, but when you're first beginning that first product, what what do you normally encourage creators to

18:09start with? This is what I tell every creator. If you want to launch a product, ask your audience what you should launch, right? Like what is a pain point that you guys have that maybe we have together and we can solve it together or bring them on the journey. Do you know who May Fam is? If I saw an image of the present

18:29potential. So, so she's a YouTuber. I mean, she's on Instagram too, but but primarily on YouTube and she does these, you know, 30 40 minute vlogs of her life. She's like 21 yearear-old, you know, living single in New York City, penthouse, you know, and and so that's her life and she gets millions and millions of views. Her first product that she launched was genius. So she launched a hoodie and the hoodie, what's genius about her strategy is she launches a new hoodie every 3 to four months. It is a unique

19:02design that she will never launch again. So people go insane for it. But what's even smarter is she brings her audience with her from day one. When she's designing it, she'll go to the designer, she'll go to the factory, like she'll be like, "Help me pick," you know, and she'll put a poll on Instagram. What color should we do? So, by the time the hoodie launches, and they're like $140, the best hoodie, like honestly, my son and I both have one. It's like the the material is so good. There's a a unique message on on the sleeve. It's like different for every single one. And when

19:38it sells out, it sells out. So these resell for like $300 or $500, you know, because there's such a demand for it. So she has and you know, she's like, and on the day of the launch, you know, this last one was like May 8th at 11:11, you'll get a code to go into the website. So it's like and it sells out in 10 minutes. And so and she makes millions of dollars a year just on the hoodie. But it's because she brings her audience in with her. Now, is it a pain point? probably not. But and the pain points, those are the ones that we're

20:09going to talk about 10 20 multiples, right? Because they're solving a painoint. These types of things, you know, if I was looking at her business and thinking about like what could she sell it for, it's lot less interesting. Like lifestyle entertainment channels are, you know, the multiples are going to be two to four. Reaction channels are completely worthless, by the way, because you don't own the IP. No buyer will touch a reaction channel. So, if you're a creator who has a reaction channel, just realize you'll never be

20:37able to sell it. You heard it here first. I love that. Yeah. You will never be able to sell it. It's awesome cuz you're speaking to physical products and apps and these, I believe, are very, very great opportunities for creatives to sell to their audience. For me, because I've actually done a physical product as

20:53well, I I did a workbook for students. It's called the learning system book. And I was trying to buy one and I couldn't buy one. Oh my goodness. I'll just give you one. [laughter] That's what I'm That's why we're here. But when I'm looking at that, I remember being in my college classroom and me writing in a wire for $112,000 while I was still a student. And I think what people don't realize is that when you're doing an app or a physical product, it actually can be cash intensive. Obviously, depending on the amount that you're ordering and depending on if you actually do it the right way, you can see if your audience

21:25wants it before you actually manufacture it. Sure. So I actually encourage people if they want to get more cash flow especially as their first opportunity to do a digital product. I think a digital product if it is live coaching or cohort style or if it's a course or anything of that nature or guide it allows you to have that cash influx to then go ahead

21:42and distribute to your other products. Is that also what you would agree upon? Yeah, I totally do and you know it. Thank you for reminding me that. I mean I actually just built a digital product of my own because I met this creator recently. So her handle is like great. It's like it was like something baby mama like her like it was like left by my baby daddy or something like and and it was the whole thing right and and she created a whole brand about helping other moms other single moms start their you know their online businesses she sold a digital product that I think was

22:13like $89 and she told me last year she made six figures and I was like wow that is so impressive right and I've never thought about doing sort of a a lower ticket item because I I just didn't think about it. But then I said, you know what? I'm going to package. So, I have this creator exit audit that I have free on my website. Um, I took that, I

22:36expanded it out. I added a guide to it. It's now 40 pages. I'm actually going to launch it in a couple weeks for $168 cuz you know in Chinese 168 means like a road to fortune, like fortune all the way. And another kind of tip, this is 20 years of negotiating really highlevel deals in Hollywood. If you come into a negotiation or you're trying to sell a product and your price is unique, it actually will make people buy it more or they'll accept it more because it it makes them realize that you thought about it, that this number matters to you. So if you come and say I want to

23:13sell this for 218,000 versus 230 or 2 250 like and and you say because this matter like I I did the math and that's the number I need. People will say, "Huh?" Right? And so I'm going to actually build that story of the 168 in there and people will be more like like cuz I could have sold it for 189 or 175, but that's the number that I've always been drawn to because I'm I'm Taiwanese and I know like 168, you know, eight's like lucky. So the digital product is brilliant. It can make you six figures because I think this woman who had the $80 one sold, you

23:48know, like a hundred, you know, like or 50,000 and and she made, you know, over 100,000. So for anyone who is trying to do their first product, I think the digital product is the lowest lift. You know, everybody can run it through cloud, they can do it on Canva. You know, it's something that I think everybody can do on their own. They don't need to hire, you know, graphics agency and or a designer to to build

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25:12creator landscape can be very terrifying for a creative. We're very good at what we do. We're very good at making the content. We're very good at connecting with our audience and building that community. But we just don't know what we don't know. And we can utilize AI to our best efforts. But it is very difficult to feel confident in what you're doing if you don't know if you can get taken advantage of. Is there a common mistake that you find often creatives go through so that those individuals listening right now can be wary of it and

25:42hopefully prevent it for themselves? I think you know typically for a creator maybe the first contract that they get handed as a creator is from a brand, right? They're wanting to do a campaign. they wanting to do a sponsorship. And I think the biggest issue that I see is brands trying to take advantage with too much usage or exclusivity. You know, you shouldn't agree to exclus an exclusive um deal that lasts more than 90 days, right? Should sometimes it's 30 days. I mean, I represented, you know, Romeo the Hyundai, you know, the the Vita Coco um creator on TikTok and, you know, when I did her Super Bowl deal, I made sure

26:26that the exclusivity was so like, you know, they wanted all beverages. I was like, no, like I was like, non-carbonated drinks and then they were like, they were like, non-carbonated drinks. I was like, no, coconut water. Like that was how precise I got down to the exclusivity because imagine how many brand deals you're taking off the table if you don't look at what the

26:47exclusivity is. I think usage is very important. I think um how long they get to use your content for if they're putting in on their O and O which is their own and operated. I think creators are so excited, but they're like, "I was going to make this video anyway, and someone wants to pay me $2,000, $5,000." Like, I'll sign anything you put in front of me. And I'm sure you hear this all the time. They do sign anything they that gets put in front of them. Now, I will say I am grateful for AI because some creators are running it through and they're able to say, "Hey, like what are you what

27:22should I push back on?" Now, this is the prompt you need to give to your Claude, okay? Okay. Or chat GBT. Pretend I am a 30-year entertainment attorney. How would I redline this contract? That's the prompt you need to give. And push back when and and say, "Stress test this." And they'll give the red line.

27:40Say, "Stress test this. Are you sure? How confident are you?" You know, because cloud will sometimes come back and say, "I'm like 70% certain." And then you'll say, "No, I want you to get to 90% certain." And that's the kind of, you know, the the back and forth that you can do with AI because not every

27:53creator can afford an attorney, right? because a $2,000 brand deal, it doesn't even make sense to to go to an attorney. But I'm glad that creators have AI as sort of at least a a first, you know, line of defense. When does it then make sense for a creator to take the next step and work with somebody like you where I also do that where I'll put everything through

28:14AI just to see what would be redlined? Now, I didn't know that prompt, so I'm going to make sure I utilize it. But effectively, when does a creator know to take it to the next step and ask Tyler, "Hey, could you actually advise me on this?" cuz I would assume that in your world it's actually much better to be preventative than it is to try to fix a mistake. So what would you suggest

28:32somebody in that regard? I used to tell creators to wait to get buttoned up. And I think through the last 3 years, I've just seen too many cases of things going wrong. For instance, if you're starting a YouTube channel with your best friend or an Instagram page with your best friend, please have something in writing that states like who owns what and if one person wants to leave, like who gets

28:53ownership? Like how do you buy them out? Like what is that termination look like? I've had to work on six really ugly divorces, you know, like partnership divorces in the creator space in the last year. Trademarks. I used to tell creators, you know, you can probably wait until you're a little bigger to get your trademark. But here's the problem, and we we we just saw this with the Spalding's lawsuit that Mr. Beast is in the middle of. When you're small and you're building, you know, your brand on a name that you might not own, it's fine because nobody knows about it. But as you get bigger and bigger, the original

29:28marks holder will come out of the woodworks and say, "Wait a minute, that's my mark." And here's the the clencher that most people don't know about. So Spaldings can ask Mr. beast for an accounting and a revenue share of everything that he has made on their mark on that beast basketball, right? I've had to do three rebrands this past year for creators because they didn't own the trademark. So now one of my first questions is, hey, do you own the trademark? And if you don't, maybe you think about it because a trademark with my firm is $3,000, but a rebrand is

30:01usually in the five or six figures. Especially if if you have to like give your revenue share to the actual marks holder. Absolutely. On a personal level, I just want to give you your flowers. I mean, we're both bootstrapped and we both came from tumultuous backgrounds. To see what you've been able to build for your career, but ultimately your personal brand and impact that you're having. I also know that you actually do a lot of work with women's shelters for domestic violence victims. And that's actually a a concern for me and my girlfriend that

30:31we've been near and dear to our heart. We've done a lot of volunteer work in that space as well. Nice. But I I just want to speak to your origin and this idea of being the voice for the voiceless. Where does that stem from? Can you speak to how all of this has been generated? You know, so I grew up um in the Ontario Claremont area. I came to America when I was seven and I was the only Asian family and I did face, you know, discrimination and racism and I was very quiet. I was very shy as a kid. I'm actually still shy now. I know it's like

31:04hard to to to see that, but I'm an introvert. Like when I travel, like I just got back from can and like I have to hibernate and like sleep for 4 days, right? But I was very shy. I kind of always retreated to reading and and not I didn't have a lot of friends and I always wanted like you said like give voice to the voiceless, you know. So, at first I thought I was going to write books, but then I really got this idea that, okay, if I did wasn't going to become a novelist, I was going to be an attorney. And I went to

31:33law school to work in the DA's office. My first summer was at the DA's office. I ultimately couldn't work there because LA County had a hiring freeze when I graduated. So, um, I became a business litigator. That was terrible. And then I I switched into Hollywood. But I never forgot my mission to protect those, you know, underdogs, those who couldn't help themselves. So, I I have worked at a woman's shelter for over 10 years, helping women, you know, get restraining orders, get divorces, get child support from from their abusers, and that's always been very important to me. So, working with creators who are basically the underdogs. I mean, we we're we're

32:12definitely seeing a shift as Hollywood, you know, is starting to recognize and see creators. I mean, I just came back from Can where we had the f first creator summit on on the beaches of can and then I went to Netflix a couple days ago where I met the woman who made the Mark Robber and Jordan Matters deal. So, it's like I have always done the work because it's important to me because I felt like not a lot of other people are going to do it. And I say this to a lot

32:41of creators and and or even to my kids. Do the work that you love that lights you up, that gets you excited and out of bed every day. And the success and the money will follow. Like I believe in that. And I've never been really focused on money. I mean, I still have like six months of billing I haven't been sent out because like that's just not my that's just not my my that's not so important to me. But thank you for saying that. It's it's it's I'm literally living my dream life right now. But realize I I lived 20 years of like a corp in corporate Hollywood where

33:15it was very soul sucking and I stayed probably much longer than I should have because there was the prestige of being a Hollywood attorney. You know, there was the cushion, the comfort of a very nice, you know, paycheck. Like I will tell you, I miss having a paycheck sometimes because every month I'm like trying to make payroll for my team, right? But um I get to wake up and do meaningful work every day. Um you know, I took several calls this weekend. This is we're we're filming right after more

33:44Memorial Day and I did a bunch of calls. Mhm. And my kids ask me, they're like, why are you working on the weekends and actually sat on that a little bit and I thought, you know what, I have clients whose entire businesses are at a standstill because they're saying, I need Tyler to tell me what to do, right? I can't move forward on this exit. I can't move forward on, you know, this acquisition. I can't move forward on, you know, this restructuring until I hear from Tyler. And so that's an honor, you know, and a responsibility that I don't take lightly. So it doesn't feel like work to me. Do you know what I

34:21That's like the best gift, right? Is when your work doesn't feel like work. Do your kids know how cool their mom is? Um, I think so. So, I mean, look, my 15-year-old is too cool for school, but but he I think he understands now. He sees how hard I work, right? And I think they both see that. And now, let's talk

34:39about the flip side of that, right? Because a lot of founders, you know, I hit burnout the end of last year. Um, as immigrants, as Asians, I think we wrap our self-worth in to working, right? I don't know how to rest. Like when we go on vacation, like whenever I I go to Hawaii and we have a whole week there, I'm like, you know, I'm going to read this one book and then by the last day I'm like, I still haven't read this book and I don't know how to rest. So that's a problem. Like I don't let myself rest. Sometimes I will be going

35:09to bed. I'm like, what did I do today? And then actually I asked Claude the other day and he's and then they're like, "You did all these things today?" You know, but I still feel like in my brain they're like, "You did LinkedIn, you wrote from Forbes, you like, you know, you you had 10 to 12 calls cuz I do 10 to 12 calls a day." But at the end of the day, I still feel like I didn't do anything, which is so messed up, right? Like that our brains work that

35:32way. This was a point of conversation that I wanted to ask you as well. I am too similar to what you've just stated that it hurts my soul. And I know when you stated that, everyone on the team just started smirking because they know exactly my personality. and to hear it from you and you've been so vocal about it on your content which makes me feel good too cuz it makes me feel less alone and I wanted to ask you after going through that burnout phase are there new boundaries that you set with your work or is there a different way of thinking or operating that has helped you in this

36:01new phase of your content and and personal branding journey? Yeah. So I had to take a real hard look at myself. I mean, from October to about March, I basically I slowed everything down. Like, I stopped taking every single call. I stopped taking every single client. I mean, June, last two years, I have spoken to over 2,000

36:21creators. Oh my. Right. So, I'm sort of like the barometer in the creator economy. I know exactly what's coming. I know exactly what's wrong or what's working. But I stopped doing now I average like there are still the 10 to 12 call days but like now I'm trying to really keep it at 5 to six calls a day. Um I changed out my entire team. Like the team that I had last year is not the team I have now because they were all sort of they were all people I was trying to save. They were all people who weren't quite right, you know, for the team. And

36:50and I will say the very beginning of this year was very uncomfortable. I remember saying to to to to a friend like god this like my business is really slow right now but it's slow because I'm act I'm running active exits right now right and these exits will take 3 to 6 months to come to you know a full closing so as a founder as a creator you know let's say as a creator you're saying okay I'm going to go launch this product you're not going to see the fruits of that for a while and it's going to feel really uncomfortable and I think having a devotion to your

37:23future future self is really important. Like I meditate about like my future self and my future business a lot. And you have to be thinking about that person because here's what happens a lot. A lot of creators will come to me and say, "Okay, Tyler, I'm watching your content. I hear what you're saying. I'm ready to launch that product." I had one come to me six months ago and saying, "I'm ready for a product." They come back six months later. I'm like, "How's the product?" And they're like, "Well, you know, I have to put out five shorts

37:50a day. Like, I just don't have time. like I just can't get on another hamster wheel, which is is a real concern, right? Because I don't want to put another hamster wheel that creators have to get on. So, I think there are solutions to the space like you can hire a fractional, you know, you can hire an

38:06operator to come in and do it for you. Um, there are companies out there like Wher is one of my clients and they have um something called Moby Ventures where they only launch products for creators. That's their whole thing. You know, your mom Ashley launched that Nami Matcha. They did that for her. They do the shipping. They do everything. And you know, it's not like it's not unlike a manager. You just give them 10 or 20% of

38:31your rev share. And you if you think to yourself, well, this is revenue I was never going to make anyway. Like don't be precious about the fact that you're giving up 20%. Like do the product because that's going to be able to wean you off of your platform dependency. Everything you're talking about. So when I look at problems, I think about is it skill or is it psychology based? And I always think of it, is it something I can learn new as in it's knowledge that I need or is it internal work that I need to develop? Oh, totally. And it's fascinating because everything you're talking to is a mix of both. When you're

39:01talking about the hamster wheel, it's not just I need to learn how to do a digital product or I need to do an app. It is the ability for you to remove yourself from that hamster wheel internally and be at peace and be content with that experience. And I have this one final question for you, which is if you look at 10 years down the road, right? I'm not talking about creators that have short stints of let's say 6 months or 1 year or 3 years of relevance. I'm talking about creators 10 years from now that could potentially do

39:28a $100 million exit if they elect to. What is the psychological makeup of that individual? What are they prioritizing today? What do they believe in today? Okay. So all the listeners right now that are tuning in can take that and immediately start following your direction. What a great question. I mean I think it is being able to move remove your ego and remove yourself from the equation. And I think for creators that's near impossible because everything about their business that their channel is about them. But you being able you have to ask yourself like could I sell this business without my face without my

40:09name. Um you look at feastables you know he he didn't call it beast he called it feastables you know you look at Nami there's a very um precise thinking behind why do you name something that's not off of your own name. I think being able to say to yourself like in five years I want to sell this business and what does that like how do I back into

40:33that? Like what do I have to do today? Does that mean making less videos a week so that I can go launch a product or that I can grow out my team? Because you know my favorite phrase is I can raise capital all day long but the hardest capital to raise is human capital. I think for most creators, the biggest problem they have is growing out their team, having the right talent. And if you don't have the right talent, you don't have the right team growing along you, like you will burn out because you can't do everything on your own. I think most people, even those who have worked in corporate

41:06America forever, we're never taught how to be leaders or managers. And that is the biggest pitfall that I'm seeing. I I will tell you like can I tell you what I spend most of my time doing is cleaning up employment or independent contractor issues like when employees are exiting because it's the most emotional and the real um moment where you can get sued as as a creator who has employees who might be mclassified or you maybe you

41:37have a total like boys club or like Mr. Beast, right? like his his latest lawsuit with the woman who like had to call in while she was pushing in the delivery room. I mean, growing a creator business like that, right, where you're not thinking about culture, you're not thinking about taking care of your people, where you're not thinking about having realistic, reasonable working hours, like like something's going to come bite you, right? Two to three years down the

42:02road. Someone is going to sue you. Someone's going to file wrongful termination, sexual harassment, gender discrimination against you. And those are the big ticket items that every creator is going to get hit with that they're not thinking about. So thinking about how to prevent those things, how to prevent the employee disputes, how to grow your business, like it it really comes from like thinking, okay, where who is that person I want to be in 5 years? Like am I making $10 million a year? Like could I could I exit at at a 10 multiple, you know, of that cuz I have a technical product. you know what

42:39what does my life look like? Where do I live? Like like do I want to be making videos every day of my life? And if the answer is no, then you have to make changes right now. Like you know, I made the change of saying, "Okay, I'm going to work on creator exits now." But that means my dayto-day might feel a little slower

42:59and I feel like I'm not doing anything. But realize that when I'm doing due diligence or I'm negotiating an NDA, you know, with a huge the biggest creator in the world like against on the other side of the table, it's like this is important work that could potentially, you know, help my clients, you know, make an extra $10 million because I'm being careful with the due diligence. I mean, one thing I want to talk about, you know, I think this might be helpful to you and your audience is when you have a buyer come out of the woodwork

43:33who says, "I want to acquire your app." And they have sort of a competitive business, be very careful because those are not always real buyers. They they might even come to you and say, "This is a buy or build situation where we're we're going to take a look to see if we could just do this on our own." I mean, they're so transparent about it. I'm surprised, right? But you have to be very careful in the negotiation process of not revealing your tech stack, not revealing who your vendors are, not revealing any of your code, of course, right? But because I think creators just think, "Oh my god,

44:07like I could get a $50 million exit right now. This would be amazing." And they show them everything. Like I have a client right now who if I hadn't stepped into the deal, they would have showed him all the raw data. Oh my goodness. Right. all there in the other sites like, "Oh, just show us the raw data. We'll clean it up for you." And and that's the part that really scares me is most creators hear 10, 20, 30, $50 million. They're just going to hand everything over and you don't realize that the buyer might actually not be interested in buying. They just they just want to know what your tech stack

44:40looks like. I've said it off camera and I've said it a few times today. I have so much respect for the work that you do cuz as a creator myself, I know how scary the landscape is. Especially because a lot of us don't even know that this can happen, right? We just hear the horror stories, but we don't know at what magnitude or at what contract level. And your content as you build this personal brand, you help all these people as I was watching your content the last 3 weeks studying up on you. I've learned so much and I know that everyone listening and tuning in right now

45:09learned a lot as well. With that being said, Tyler, I just want to say thank you so much for your time. Of course. Thank you so much for having me.