I was not found. I was developed. I was put into a position where I could grow into that role and become that person. Tristan, you ran the content behind one of the biggest personal brands in the whole space itself. You know, I think business owners nowadays want to outsource everything and just want to hire somebody that’s going to fix all their problems and not have to talk to them about it. Back then, Iman stayed very tapped into content. Iman famously said that I was the least ROI positive team member of the company. I think he said once he saw it as like the least important thing and then it became the most important thing. Yeah. What makes someone a really good head of content? There is such a problem in the space right now of like business owners looking for a head of content, right? A head of content should have a balance between a creative mindset and an operational mindset. The people that make the most amount of money is from YouTube. Instagram and Tik Tok and feel like quick dopamine hits, but the real audiences still buy from YouTube. Somewhere out there, someone has watched every single piece of content Iman posted. every short, every webinar, probably also every single YouTube video, but they don’t know that you were actually behind it. And today, we’re fixing that. Tristan, you ran the content behind one of the biggest personal brands in the whole space itself, but still no one knows that it was actually you. Now, my first question to you is, how does it feel to have generated billions of views, impacted so many people, you guys actually changed so many lives, but I guess no one ever knew that you were the person behind it. I guess I’ve just never thought about it that way. Okay. I think I looking back at it now, it’s pretty impressive, but during I just didn’t really care. Like I saw myself as a cog in a wheel with multiple other wheels. And so like yeah, it’s cool to look back at it now, but I never thought at any time like how I how the videos were impacting anybody or like how this was changing lives. I was literally just so ingrained with like the and the running of the content system that that never really like clicked until I left. Yeah. And so it’s like it’s fun to look back at it now, but during like I wasn’t even paying attention. It’s so funny you say that cuz like for me that’s how I found out about the online money space. Um person behind the camera is how you found out about the online space. pretty much everyone that I know and for you it’s like I mean it’s probably because you were working so hard at it that you never even had time to actually like think about it that way. But I think it’s going to be interesting. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. We had a lot of conversations. I think today we’re going to really get in the weeds uh of it all. And I think people are going to really get to understand that you actually know a lot more than even you know you give yourself credit for. But where I want to start is where everything kind of started. You know um Bermuda, right? I I did some of the research and I saw some of the very old pictures, you know, where they you even have a quote in a really old magazine where you say like that Instagram is like the future and it’s allowed you to like grow your photography business. Yeah. And so like I guess bring us back to like day zero, you know, who was Tristan before all this? Wow. Um I mean that’s a great question. I think looking back at it, like I was in university studying a product design degree, kind of doing all of the normal things. I think you know, for me at least, what my parents wanted me to do, it’s like go get further education, go get a university degree, get a job, stable income, all that [ ] Um, and like during that time, it was sort of as Instagram, like Instagram had come out at that point, but it was sort of like the golden era of like content creation, people going out and becoming travel content creators. I was like, “Fuck yeah, this is what I want to do.” And from like with my mother’s background in like insurance, Mhm. which has her son going from like two years in a into a university degree, you know, money put into it like I’m almost there. Yeah. And I was like, I think I want to do this. Yeah. She was like, oh god, no. Like that was sort of the first challenge was sort of explaining to her what this was, what this opportunity was. And I think she says it now, like credit to myself, that I was able to kind of like pull it through. But it’s had so many different uh evolutions of a career. You know, back in what was it sort of 2017, 2018, 2019? Mhm. I was travel content creator. Okay. Yeah. I saw the Iceland Iceland clips and everything. Yeah. I miss you. Always come back. Love Iceland. I saw all of it. Yeah. I’m getting used to sort of the cringe of like going back and looking at all that old stuff. But um you know working for tourism boards, working for brands, agencies and just going on and like doing shoots, creative shoots for those people just to create like Instagram content before like it was really the thing that it is now and the understanding of how like brands can utilize it. So I think I was like I was ahead of it but I wasn’t like making the most of that opportunity if that makes sense. It’s like luck but not luck cuz I remember like you said you had your friend write an article about you like the journalist with all the pictures you used to take like in Bermuda under the water and like everything. Um but I like I said there’s a part where you basically say like oh Instagram is like the new way for people to get like to get business or to get recognized or you know I get people clients through Instagram. And so it’s like some people will be like, “Oh yeah, well you work with them on.” But it’s like you kind of were also really ahead of the curve like you saw a bit of this trend and the way that I see is like because of that you know the rest happened. So it’s like I guess going from that how did the transition even happen? Like I guess first things first like how did you even meet Aman? Yeah. So like to your point of like kind of being ahead of it, I think I was so engrossed with like being a creative cuz I have like I was in a product design degree like I would consider myself like quite creatively minded. Um and so I was always looking at at it from that lens. And I think the transition happened where I was like okay now I need to turn this into a business. Mhm. What can I do? What sort of process can I take program by whatever to kind of give me that level up? Mhm. end of 2019, I had sort of finished my last contract with this travel agency. And I was like, okay, like can try and figure it out the business side of things whilst also looking for a job. And this was January, February, March 2020. And I think we all know what happened in March 2020. Yeah. And so found myself at home isolated, shaved my head, scrubbing banana bread. Okay. Yeah. Cuz I used to have like long hair. Yeah. All that sort of lore during that time that time period. Monk mode essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Also ahead of my time there. But um you know I saw this guy Iman Gadi and I had the connection I had with him was 3 years prior I DM’d him and I was like hey look I can do your content for you. I can help you shoot. He was living in London at the time agency before he was even a thing. Yeah. But like not even that sense. I wasn’t even pitching it like that. It was like I knew he was running the operation by himself. Okay. Just from watching his content. And I was like, there’s this 17-year-old kid who’s done really well in business. It was at the time where he just bought like he rented that, you know, that apartment where it’s like that whole downstairs area with the outside area. He’s got his desk against the wall. Like it’s very iconic apartment for him. Met him there just from the DM. And we kind of just struck the agreement that it wasn’t really the right timing because he was the question was like, “What can you do that I can can’t already do myself?” Okay. Yeah. All right. And when you were what was he? Yeah. So 2017 I was [ ] like 21 at that time. Yeah. Um well no 23. Yeah 23. Yeah. Something like that. And I was like fair enough. Holy [ ] It’s been it’s been like 9 years. Yeah. Yeah. That’s coming up on 10 next year since I met him. Yeah. And then you know obviously nothing happened from that. And then you kind of fast forward 3 years later his brand just kind of continued to grow and continue to blow up. And that’s why I said in my application when he put it out on his story in 2020 when he was looking for a video editor, I was like, “Hey, look, we’ve met before. I’m still I’m now more unemployed than I was before. Uh, and you’ve just kind of blown up. Your business is going crazy. Like, I think I can really help you now.” And it came down to it. I genuinely believe the reason I got that job was because I was based in London. Yeah. The proximity to him, being able to film with him. And so during that time as well, the other thing to mention was like March 2020, between March and June when I got the job, I had enrolled in I think it was agency navigator. Okay. And was doing the course. Yeah. And had paid him a,000 bucks. Okay. And so for the entire first year that I worked for him, he was like, “You have to have some skin in the game.” And then after the year of working with him, he then refunded me the money for Agency Navigator. But like I was totally dedicated to trying to start a social media marketing agency and then I was like [ ] it. Like I could start my own agency or I learn from the guy for a year and then go start something else. Yeah. Which look how that ended. Yeah. That never happened. Right. So it’s funny to look back at it. But it’s kind of like those stages of where you know timing around what I was thinking of doing with myself and the business but then also like timing around you know things that happened in my life where you know obviously the thing in 2020 happened and then I was kind of like the thing yeah like as a travel content creator in 2020 there was not a lot of gigs flying around. So not a lot of traveling. Yeah. So I was like I need to scramble and find something and this just came about quite naturally. And so it was it was literally just kind of like luck and timing for it to happen and then yeah it obviously turned into what it did. So it’s fun to look back at it for sure. Okay. That’s that’s very interesting. So in terms of like when you guys started it’s so different to how it looks today. Yeah. So I guess I’ll go back to like when you first joined like what did that look like at the start and then like I’m curious to know what it looked like at the start and then when did you feel like it started shifting something more serious? that I mean June 2020 started working uh with Iman and you know I think it was a bit of a mix like I would be spending half of my time with him filming in person building vlogs at his house or like [ ] helping him build his office setups like I was quite like I love an IKEA set so I was like he saw that and he was like perfect Tristan you’re going to design my offices right you’re going to build all the desks you’re going to put in all the lighting and do all the the framing for the shots and then the other side of it was obviously the editing and back then like our content strategy was what video did we post last time this year like last year this time of year okay let’s do that or it was um how to do Facebook ads 2019 or let’s run how to do Facebook ads 2020 and that was our content strategy and it was working uh define working I think we were I joined sort of sub I think it was sub 150k sub subscribers and then a year we grew 19,000 subscribers which by Okay. So the first year was like okay it was Yeah. It wasn’t like I came in and changed everything and then it was like we all of a sudden had this meteoric rise by no So what changed in the first year or do you think did it get like easier to be consistent? Was it I think we we just kind of learned the formats of videos that we needed to lean in on. Like we sat down and we said okay this strategy of just basically rinsing and repeat videos from the last year isn’t working. Let’s go. But Iman wanted to go a bit broader and kind of do the vlogs to show a little bit more about his lifestyle. And I think from those we were able to kind of like decipher what elements people were really interested in like monk mode came out of that just by us vlogging Iman’s day-to-day routine and then like his military. Is that is that because like the agency stuff kind of capped like you guys kind of really like you kind of took over that space and it was like on to the next, right? Ye yes and no. I like I can’t say anything to like the sort of the timing if it was exact like the two felt right for him. It just felt like right for him. It was just we need to do something a bit different that is not YouTube video sit down talking about SMMA. Yeah. Like we can document Iman’s life of him running the SMMA but also running the the program and the community which no one had really done before. No. And for him he was a young guy doing it. So I think everybody like that kind of tapped into human psychology. People are always like [ ] like I just kind of want to see what it looks like to be in like the inner workings of it. And so everything was just like snowballing quite nicely where we were introducing these newer formats whilst also kind of like doubling down ones that we knew were, you know, historic performers. And we changed the perspective where we were always just trying to make sure that somebody was getting something out of the video. You know they it wasn’t just a video for like value’s sake. it was like there is a transformation or there’s a problem to be fixed or there is some like insight to be had in terms of like Iman’s life. I think up until that point he’d gone from like vlogging his life as a you know personal trainer then into his SMMA journey and then we really went hard on like the sort of value side videos where he’s talking about how to start an SMMA. So we like he became a figure in the space. He had that cultlike following and that cultlike following wanted to know more about him as a personality and I think when we did that like I said we would find things in Iman’s lifestyle that people were like tapped into and you know if we’re trying to create content where there’s sort of like a tangible outcome what was best for you know aspiring entrepreneurs to follow this young guy who’s made a lot of money who said if you lock in for 6 months you don’t take drugs you don’t smoke weed you don’t you know drink alcohol you meditate, you get, you know, a 90 sleep score and you’re aura ringing, like all these guys go, “Holy [ ] like that’s that’s going to help me break through.” And ultimately, like it distills good habits, but it doesn’t make you a millionaire, right? Um, so I think all of those things were like all like happened quite naturally in terms of timing, but like the strategy in that first year was literally just rinse and repeat. And then into that second year was where we really were like doubling down on formats, focusing. That second year is like what year? 2021. Okay. So it was like half of 2020 and then in 2021 was where we like Iman said to me look we need to build this out like we want to scale this. So once you like guys started taking it seriously like 2021 everything. I’m sure at that point you had like a routine like what was it what was your dayto-day like? What was your week to week like working? Um I think it’s it was a lot simpler back then to what it was just before uh I left obviously like as the the mechanism or the the scale the machine grew like the systems needed to make sure it ran properly was was changed a lot at the beginning like when I first joined I was it was like a team of seven and the content calls were me and I man okay yeah was it and it was like have you edited a video yeah have you seen it Hey, it looks good. Uh, what we going to do thumbnail? And we would sit on the call and we’d make the thumbnail live and be like, “Yeah, that looks good.” Thank god we we introduced like a rehashing strategy so that we got rid of all the thumbnails that I made because they were just [ ] dog [ ] Yeah. Um, but I was editing a lot and you know, we had a lot of outputs. Like for me, I was I think we had one main channel upload a week and then uh like a student interview on the second channel as well as like another value based video on the second channel. So it was like three sometimes four um edits per week. Okay. And at that time with it being such a small team, it would just be me and I man catching up for an hour a day and an hour a day. An hour a day. Every day. Yeah. Like the whole company is built around touch points. Okay. like the like for us or as department heads, you’d have to have at least one touch point with each of your departments a day, one hour call and there’d be a wider content call where it’s like the whole department then syncs together. Yeah. So people only meet with their content team like twice twice a week. Yeah. Exactly. And so that was how you guys met like four years ago, like 5 years ago. So I can’t even imagine how today it is. Today it’s it’s it’s similar. It’s just it’s just kind of like scaled. Yeah. Um, and then the teams have grown. So then the calls become less like they have to become more efficient. Right. At the beginning Iman and I could talk about content for like 20 minutes, get everything done and then just kind of like shoot the [ ] for 40 minutes, right? Just chat about nothing. Um, whereas now it was a lot. It’s, you know, obviously we’ll get into it, but like now it’s just a welloiled machine where in a 1hour call you can get you like you can only just get through like the key things. There are still things that need to be discussed after the fact. Okay. So, so let’s say like back then when you guys had your like 2021, 2022. Mhm. So like what did that because what I’m trying to understand I think I want to get through today is like what does the actual relationship look like between like a creator personal brand owner and then his head of content. So what did like what did your guys’ relationship look like? Who was it like you know he would have a direction he wants to go down then you find how to execute it. I think that’s like people are really interested to know how did that flow between both of you guys and then how did that grow and like change over time? What I will say and I think is probably like there are some people that talk or talk about like the opposite to this and say that this is the wrong way of doing it and then there are other people that say no that’s the right way of doing it. You know I think business owners nowadays want to outsource everything and just want to hire somebody that’s going to fix all their problems and not have to talk to them about it. Mhm. I think back then Iman and and to this day Iman stayed very tapped into content like he comes from a content background. The guy was posting for years on YouTube. Yeah. By himself. And so like he understood the fundamentals. And I me coming in from like a travel content creator background, I didn’t understand the fundamentals. So very early on it was always it was very much Iman had the vision and it was up to me to make sure that I could execute on that. What does Okay, so what does executing mean? That’s like the real question because someone sees it, right? We used to watch the videos. There’s a thumbnail here, a YouTube video here, a student video here, then there’s a vlog being posted at the same time, there’s like a webinar coming up. So like like that is that’s you looking at it now, right? Like back then executing would just be we need to film this video. What time do can you come to my house? Okay, film the video, take the footage back, edit it up, produce the a cut, you know, make the changes that he wants to change and then make the thumbnail. Yeah, that was as much that’s as far as you know um you know executing goes and I think there are a lot of business owners that are in that stage today where it’s just it’s very much that back and forth okay like jump ahead to what we were doing when I left was like you know we would have uh inputs from what we needed to do for the YouTube channel like what exactly do we have coming up what do we need to post on the YouTube channel we would have videos that we would need to post on the business channel we’d have videos that we would need to post on, you know, the uh the unscripted channel, the vlog channel. And then there’s all the other like miscellaneous videos that go into launches, you know, welcome videos, um upsell videos, thank you page videos, ads, all that stuff would come across my table and it’ be like, okay, how can we one, how can we prioritize everything? Two, who needs to do these because who’s best suited to work on what kind of project? And it would just be my job would just basically be managing expectations of when things can be delivered. Okay. So, this is interesting because it means you weren’t just like on the YouTube side or Instagram side. It was like any content because when you talk about VSSL, thank you pages, all these different video that’s like that’s not just the personal brand side. It’s like the business itself. And so, you were just like heading all of that. Yeah. So, essentially it’s like we have to get these things done, figure it out essentially. Yeah. Yeah. And I think depending on what was the content type, there would be a lot of people that I would need to be tapped into or speak to about what exactly was like their vision because the marketing team would have a different vision for the ads, right? They know exactly they want this kind of visual hook. They want it in this kind of setting or this kind of environment. And so generally speaking, when we’re doing kind of like ads before an event, we’re like like most of the time we’d be traveling somewhere and it’d be up to me and Alex to be like, “Okay, we need to film this ad. We need to get these scripts.” It’s like you just know like it got to a point in the company where everybody knew who was responsible for what. And so I would be able to go, you go get the scripts from, you know, the head of marketing. I’ll get the cameras set up. We’ll get them, you know, put in front of Iman and we’ll get these all filmed and delivered and make sure that we get them to the editing team. And like it’s simple when you think about it. It’s just, you know, there is a task that needs to be done, the task gets done, and then you notify the next person. It wasn’t like I was taking the videos, I was then uploading them, I was then, you know, overseeing the editors. It got to a point where everything was so streamlined that when footage was dropped off to editors for YouTube videos, thank you page videos, if they didn’t know what to do, they’d know who to talk to. So they weren’t coming back to me being like, “Oh, what does it need to be edited?” It was like everything was just everything synced really, really well. Okay. And so it meant that, you know, within the team, everybody was like a problem solver. It wasn’t just you send them something and then, you know, they were like, “Oh, I don’t know what to do.” Like they would go out and figure it out. You know what I’m really curious about? um you went from like like photography like underwater photography of someone swimming talking about like all these systems and operations. So my question is like like how did you manage learning all that? Like what what was the learning curve for you? Cuz I’m sure like a lot of people watch right now and it’s like damn that sounds like a really complex system to put together but you worked on it for years and years and like how did you manage your growth cuz I’m sure your mom had probably like pretty high expectations of like just figure [ ] out. Yeah. How did you manage like your growth yourself like growing your skill set? Um I mean you like you know you pretty much like ran all the operations and you built everything you’re talking about right now. Yeah. Um so how did that look like for you growthwise? Like did you have any other people that mentored you? Was it just figuring it out by yourself? Is it you and together? What was that like? I was talking to somebody about this the other day. It was like they asked me like what was the biggest challenges you faced when you were like changing operationally within a within the company? And I don’t think like looking back at it, you can kind of like pinpoint moments at which you change, but like the rate in which we were doing things, it didn’t feel like a massive challenge. It just felt like it was like the next step to get to the desired outcome. It was like, okay, we’ve got a team now, like we need to grow the editing team because, you know, our scope or the amount of videos that we would want to create would do this and our amount of team was sort of flatlining. we’d always have to hire more to reach the uh or be able to handle the amount of work that we were doing. And so I think when we hired our first editor, Alex back in 2021, that was like the first sort of relief for me to not have to edit three to four videos per week. And like obviously my edit skills were nothing compared to the guys that we have now. Like miles miles better than me or better than I ever was. And so when we brought Alex in, it was, you know, the first kind of like taste of what it’s like to manage somebody and make sure that they’re staying on task. And, you know, it was still very friendly. And I think Alex and I like our friendship reflects that. But then as soon as it was like, okay, we need to introduce another one and then another one and then another one. It was like how do you go from managing one person where it’s quite friendly, it’s quite casual to then a team of people who at the end of the day are better than you at what you were doing. Yeah. But they need to respect you so that you they get the work done for you. And I think I would always say that I kind of towed the line of a little bit more not a harsh critic. I would always sort of give criticism but then also try to motivate. Mh. And I think that was like a key moment or where things changed for me was like going from one person where it was just super casual to then going to like a bigger team. I had to make sure that everything that I was doing, I was doing it from the mindset of like you can be better at this. It’s not like this was [ ] do better. That works in some departments, but for the creative space, I think it’s always this wasn’t your best. How can we get to a better outcome? Okay. And do it together. Yeah. And so I’m kind of like sidetracking here, but um I think for me like when we were building the teams out like I quickly learned that like operational operations for me was kind of like where I found my stride. Interesting. Cuz it like I think content or head of contents these days need to be creative. Yes. Well, they need to have an operational mindset because you can have somebody who’s steering the ship who’s creative, but if the objective is to grow and scale, and you don’t have the systems, you don’t have the operations for it, like it’s just you’re just going to end up with [ ] chaos. It’s um it’s kind of like I think like I I name it like one person like a operational creative person. Yeah. And the other other person like a psycho creative, right? So it’s like I would say like Alex I don’t know how operationally like he is but he wouldn’t mind me saying he’s not. Yeah. Exactly. So he’s like I would say he’s more of like a psycho which is like hyper creativity like their mind is just in this other world and they just see things all the time that like at the end of the day like you can’t see. Yeah. You know they’ll see angles that you just don’t see. But then you have the other person who’s creative enough to understand where you’re going. And I’m sure that that’s I think where the balance that you had was perfect. Yeah. because you were creative enough to understand them on but at the same time operationally good enough be able to manage that whole system. Yeah, exactly. And I I’ll say that like learning those things was very much like Iman to his credit wouldn’t micromanage. He would sort of be like, “Okay, you’ve got three editors now. Like you’re going to have to manage this. You’re going to have to lead to content calls. I’m not going to be able to be on every single one. Like you’re going to need to kind of distill what I have done with you to these people.” Mhm. And he would, it was a very hands-off approach. And I think that was probably like trial by fire looking back at it. Yeah. And I’m sure there are things that I did that he wouldn’t have done. Yeah. But that’s just like leadership styles are different in departments. And I think that by him doing that and stepping away, it like made me learn so much faster. Yeah. And fail so much faster. like fail in terms of how to manage team, how to talk to them, how to motivate them, like all the interpersonal things that you don’t really think about. Um, it was just, you know, you kind of learn those things along the way. And then you you can kind of sit back after a year and have a team of sort of four or five editors and go, okay, I had to do this, I had to do this, I had to do this. But while when you’re doing it, you’re not aware of those changes. Okay. Interesting. It’s funny. is um there’s like a theme that went around of you know you guys don’t h you only hire people who are going to work 100% with you guys you know can’t have their own thing like why obviously it’s it might be obvious to some people but like why like was that that you guys are just said okay if you’re going to work with us you’re 100% with us it was just it was always the directive from Iman like whenever I joined it was like are you working with anybody are you freelancing right now it’s like no like he’s like you need to understand that this is a full-time role I I think in a in an organization when you have the vision that you know it’s going somewhere. I think you should always be looking at hiring team with the perspective that eventually you would want to bring them on full-time. Yeah. Because you don’t want to become dependent on somebody who quite easily could get snapped up by an opportunity that they actually enjoy more. Yeah, I agree. Right. No one for working for me is and it’s worse now than it was 5 years ago cuz like like if we’re talking like the creative space like editing designers, thumbnail designers, like copywriters, all those people are like [ ] hot commodities now. Yeah. Like business owners need them. The cost now is they know their value. The cost now is so different. I mean it’s obviously why I built like Track around it, but it’s like dude, a YouTube strategist used to cost nothing. And now I heard from um from a friend of mine, there’s a YouTube strategist in this big company getting paid half a million dollars a year. Crazy more than engineer, right? And it’s like thumbnails were used to be way cheaper. Now to get a good video edited is like two to 500 bucks. Sometimes it’s like $800 for a good video. It’s like everything’s changed so much. And honestly, what I’m curious about is uh we we’ve obviously spoken a lot about like content teams and everything. Yeah. How do you how do you retain people? How did you manage to retain people? Obviously, they were working with them on, so it’s like cool. But you guys paid decent, but it’s not like you guys went out of your way to pay them like crazy. Like, from from my understanding, what I understand, it’s like you paid them what they were worth it to you, and it’s not like you overpaid. Um, and so, how did you like how do you get people to stay on your team? How do you get them to not just leave and fluke and just work with you for 3 months and say, “Oh, yeah, I work with them on. I’m gone now.” You know, so like how did you manage that? So, I think we we had something that was always it was just like our kind of like hidden secret or like when we would approach interviews, we didn’t have to pitch. Yeah. Very hard. Like the editors or the creatives wanted to work with us because it was like I’ve like there’s there’s so many people who have gone off and said I was we all deal with and like credit to them like if they were in the organization and they did work on the the videos then they are who they say they are. But I think everybody sees what Iman has done and sees what we did in the content space and was like, I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of the team. So we had like a good foundation of people wanting to come to us first and foremost. But that second to that, like if you have that foundation of everybody’s full-time and we’re looking to like build a proper company and make sure everybody is aligned with the culture, everyone’s aligned with the values and the vision of what we’re doing. M then generally speaking once they’re in the organization it’s up to their manager to make sure that they’re having the best time possible. Not the best like when I say the best time possible it’s like they are fulfilling their requirements as a team member but they’re also growing into that role. They’re they feel like they’re learning something. They’re not just doing the thing doing the thing over and over and over again. Like Iman and I sat down and we realized that, you know, especially for video editors, there is a ceiling. There’s a point in which if you’re paying them full-time, there’s a point in which the amount that you pay them does doesn’t make sense for you as the business owner because they’re not doing anything more than that, you know, so-called ceiling. And so when we approach that, we’d be able to say, “Okay, this person is starting off on X. What’s their runway?” Mhm. And what does their ceiling look like? And once we figured that out, it was sort of like a 18month period between the person joining and then the person leaving. Like that was like the consistency. Yeah. And for us, like with all the culture stuff aside with, you know, people wanting to come work with us, it’s a really interesting thing to be in the online space as a creative because if you think about it, we hire these video editors. Some of them are like, you know, 17, 18, 19, maybe fresh out of school or had one job before coming to work with us and they’re doing well and we start to pay them a little bit more, start to pay them a little bit more. The only content that they’re ever editing is about how to make 100k a month, 200k a month, or this 16-year-old made 50k this month. Like all the content is just encouraging them to make more and to go off and do something on their own. Like it like when you think about that, you’re like, “Okay, shit.” Like I I understand it. Like I it breeds a certain They’re like learning while editing too. They’re like, “Oh [ ] it’s actually how it works.” Yeah. So we would always know in like the interview process like if somebody had desire to do that, I had the desire to be an entrepreneur and if we knew that going into it and we still hired them, we would know like okay 18 months give or take is probably what it’s going to like that’s the timeline that we’ll have them. Yeah, but generally speaking, I would say like how we would retain them is making sure that their ceiling is managed well, making sure that they’re not making, you know, um ridiculous increases in terms of compensation, like rewarding when good work is done. Yeah. And doing it on a consistent basis so that they feel like they’re growing and with each compensation change there is more responsibility given. And mix that with an environment which is not like cutthroat. Yeah, it’s not like you miss a deadline and you’re gone. There are other departments in which if you missed your you know what you had to deliver on that you would be taken out very quickly. But I was I would always kind of push against that. I wouldn’t want to lead creatives with fear. Caleb Rosson says it a lot like you can’t lead a creative team. You can’t creatively. It’s hard to do it that way. Like 100%. Even even right now with some of our videos that we do like because I talked to I mean Abdman, right? So we talk all the time and like he work with some people and he was like bro these business guys they just don’t get it because people like something doesn’t happen exactly or one edit is wrong or it’s the wrong background music like they just go crazy. Yeah. But if you sit behind the scenes of a creative aspect you understand like number one it takes time. Yeah. And when you’re like, from my perspective, I mean, I’ve never been an editor, but when you’re editing and you’re trying to be more creative and you’re trying to stack everything the right, you’re like trying to build this puzzle. Yeah. Dude, no one gets the puzzle right on day one, you know? Exactly. And it’s like I think it’s one of the only places where like you have to give some room, you know, especially if you want people to improve. Um, and I think like I think you’ve done that really well when we’ve spoken before. It’s like you give them the room to improve, but it’s also like, hey, we need to find your ceiling and we need to like get to whatever goal you want to get to. The ceiling is I would say is always good for the manager to know. It’s not something that I would have necessarily like told the candidate because like I don’t want them to say like look you’ve once you hit this number you’re you’re done like that would have just been bad practice. But what I would always say was like coming from a creative background I was always like I would understand what made me feel fulfilled as a creative. Like when I started working with Iman and I produced an edit and delivered it, he watched it and he would send me a message be like, “Holy [ ] that was great.” Yeah. That’s the dopamine hit. The dopamine hit real, man. Like you you are you strive to impress this person. Yeah. And as the team grows, you know, less and less is Iman involved with the sort of direct reviewing. So he’s not there to kind of give credit where credit is due. So then I have to step into that role and make sure that guys when they bust their ass video full circle full circle moment. Yeah. And like once if you realize somebody’s like put in a good shift and worked hard on something, it’s not it’s one thing for them to be acknowledged for. It’s another thing for that person to also be acknowledged within the team. I think I think that’s where a lot of people go wrong these days. Like no one really gives um credit their team enough cuz it takes time to make a video good and to like go over it. I think if most these guys had to sit down and edit a video for once, they would completely like I tried to start editing once, you know, and I was like, I’mma edit and then 30 minutes in I was like, all right, bro. I think Yeah, there is an art to it, you know? There’s a whole art to it. Yeah. And it takes a long time to learn. And I think that’s also why like um sorry for cutting you off. That’s also why like it’s starting to cost more cuz a lot of these creatives now are like, you know, pay up, you know, like I’m not going to be your little your little kid anymore. That’s that’s what’s happening, right? Yeah, 100%. Like, and all credit to them, right?
And I think for business owners, like if we’re talking about like things that where they go wrong, I think it’s like you can hire an editor who is like on paper and with their, you know, references, their portfolio work like a [ ] 10 out of 10. Yeah. But as soon as they get into the organization, they actually cause more problems than they actually are worth. So you wouldn’t go with the best guy. I think there’s a time and a place for the best guy for sure. But I think paying the best paying for the best guy as a business owner, you come you approach that working relationship with the lens of like this person’s going to solve everything for me or I don’t need to do that much. I just need to send them the footage and they’ll get it. Mhm. And I think our approach was, you know, and I think people are starting to catch on to it now. It’s like our approach was, you know, whenever anybody joined the team, whether they’re, you know, their track record was stellar and they had all these examples and all this portfolio work, they would always join the team at a B player level. Okay. And so with that comes a responsibility. That’s one one question. When you mean B player, is what does B player mean to you? Is it like they’re good enough at editing? But because we also want to try maybe separate for anyone who’s watching is like they’re still like consistent people. They’re like operationally driven in sense like they’re not going to miss deadlines but their editing is maybe like not all the way. Like which part like what makes them like a B player? Yeah. So I think the best way to split it up is like a B player is somebody who has the aptitude to do the thing. Okay. So if they’re a video editor or they’re a thumbnail designer, they can edit and create great thumbnails. They can deliver it on time. It’s to a high quality, right? Becoming an A player is about your attitude. Like how you not just communication but like taking it upon yourself to solve problems, be proactive within an organization and find out newer ways or better ways of doing things because like me as a manager, I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say that I don’t know the best ways to do everything. But sometimes it takes a conversation with somebody who is doing the day-to-day work and say, “I think there’s a better way of doing this.” So you would like give the room for your editors to also like speak up and give their own thing and make changes and everything else. 100%. Not only just to like find maybe operational bottlenecks but like more importantly to like develop a sense of like collaboration like create I think our editors felt most fulfilled and would create the best work when everybody became involved. It wasn’t just I’m reviewing the video and I’ll give you the feedback. It was like, you know, our lead editor would make a review, our, you know, our short form editor would make a review or our vlog editor would say, “Have you looked at this? Have you looked at this?” And like I would try to introduce like creative sessions where the editors would then sit together without me and basically like shoot the [ ] And so that’s interesting. Actually, that part is interesting. I think it’s really interesting how people don’t realize the extent to which you have to humanize your content team. Yeah. And I think a lot of people just see them as like this cog and like I mean you said it about yourself which is obviously not true um now that we’re actually talking but like they just put them in this box and it’s like yeah just here’s the drive and just figure and they just treat them like you know like they’re not exactly a separate part of the business when it’s like it is the business and I think it’s interesting that you were saying like you put them together you have them have creative sessions and like I think a lot of people and I think they just don’t humanize their content team enough. Yeah. you know, they don’t realize these guys have opinions. They have a style they think that could be interesting. They have their shots. I have like my team be like, “Oh, like this shot could be interesting and try to film it this way and like, you know, film a loom at the same time you’re doing this and I just take all of it.” It’s like it’s bonus. But I think some people, they don’t approach it that way. And I think it’s really interesting how the way you built up the whole system is by taking these guys that people might see as an editor or like just a thumbnail guy or just creative strategist and like essentially turning them into like leaders and their own like brains of their own business under you. For sure. And I think that’s like really cool. Yeah. And I think for any business owner who is looking to start or at least like keep it going in the long form or the content game like you want to have a team that is along for the ride, right? And I think like you said humanizing. I think that’s what Iman did. like Iman would basically give me the space to grow this thing and to like learn all those lessons to build out this content team. And that just meant that what he taught me then permeated throughout the rest of the team. And so it’s like that element came about because we understood that content is going to be a big part of what we do in the long-term vision of the business. Obviously when I first joined it was not. So it was funny to kind of see that change. Like Iman famously said that I was the least ROI positive team member of the company. This is back before we were really doubling down on you. I think he’s made content about that once, right? I think so. I tried to mention it. I think he I think he said once he saw it as like the least important thing and then it became the most important thing in all business. Yeah. And I think now business owners like this is the most important thing. I need to get on this. And I think if you if you start out with the mindset of like I’m just going to hire a team. I’m not really going to like interact with them that much. I’m not going to try and pour into them as much as I need to and just pay them a per edit basis. Like you’ll get results as a reflection of the amount of effort that you put in. So it’s just it’s just a matter of like making sure that you are pouring into the creative team, humanizing them as you say. Yeah. And over time you’ll see that everybody gets like brought along on this journey on this kind of like the overall vision for where you want to go with the content. And then that just means that like eventually the results will be a reflection of that. Yeah. You know, one thing I just thought about, I remember I think um I was talking to a friend of mine telling him I was going to do this interview. Yeah. And he was like, “Dude, you should ask him like what like who created the Eongazi style, right? Like who like where did that where did that even like come from? Was it natural? Like where’d that come from?” the quickest way to like debunk it was like we didn’t sit in a room and go how do we create the style obviously you know what I mean yeah I would say that it probably came around there was two editors that worked for us um a gentleman called Tom and another guy called Nicola okay um Tom was like our first editor hire where we were specifically screening for animation style editors and he came in it was around the time that we were launching Digital Renaissance, the event, he came in and just like took our production quality in terms of the like the the edits to a different level in terms of like the expectation of what people want to see. Everything before that was like [ ] plugins and like you know slideshows that we would just like animate onto the screen like you know not proud of it man enough to say that [ ] you know like
oh bra that’s yeah look I’m tapped in but that’s like that was the reality so we knew going into it we want somebody that’s going to kind of like level things up. What made you guys want to even do animations? We were just like like how can we make our videos better at the end of the day? We were looking at the stuff that we were doing and like how can we it wasn’t like we were looking at somebody and saying this is [ ] great like we need to do something like this. It was just like we need to be leveling up. What are the skill sets that we’re lacking right now in the team? Mhm. And whenever we did hiring we were lucky to get like such an influx of candidates like thousands upon thousands of candidates. So, it’s like if you just screen for like specific things, then people would come to us and be like, “Okay, I need a a very special like uh special effects editor.” And like with that, we would get a [ ] mix. We get people who are like, you know, I can do all of these like Blender animations that I’ve done for feature films. I’m like, “Oh, can you do like, you know, infographic animations on YouTube videos?” Like, yeah, but it’s kind of like below my pay grade a little bit. Um, so we were lucky. We were we were lucky. when we when we screened for it, we got a guy called Tom and then Nicola is actually like quite a funny not funny but it was like for me it’s something that I look back on I’m quite proud of that I did it was we were looking for another editor and at that time the short form team had you know was you know probably like 50 plus people so what’s that 23 uh end of 2022 beginning of 2023 yeah cuz that was post hey and then okay yeah and like We had this team built out. Yeah. And it was like, we can do another hiring round. And I was like, why don’t we just like screen the short form team? Like, let’s see if there’s somebody there worth our time. And it was one challenge. And it wasn’t like anything like they had to edit YouTube videos specifically. But it was just like keep doing what you’re doing. But like I came into a meeting, I was like, “Guys, there’s this position open. We want somebody who has experience in After Effects. We don’t want you to edit a YouTube video. I just want you to like [ ] go crazy on your next short form video. Like I want you to create something that is going to be like, “Wow.” Yeah. And Nicola created something and it was a short form reel and I was like, “Holy [ ] this is great.” Yeah. And so we very quickly took him, placed him into the long form team and then he just ran with it. Like he just kind of he just caught his stride. long form videos was his format. And then he very quickly became our editor that we leaned on for everything, you know, pre-recorded events, trailers, YouTube videos, like he was the guy that when we talk about B player versus A player, he had the aptitude, so he could do the thing, but he had the attitude of like always trying to make the next video better. He’s going to clip this up so hard. That’s fine. Like I have so much respect for him. He deserves it. Yeah. Like I I’m not here to gate, but I’m here to like That’s honestly like we’re talking that’s one thing I think is is probably key to why you guys grew like that. Yeah. Is like your openness and the amount of like respect you gave them and the amount of like how seriously you took it. Yeah. But how you treated it is like I think obviously Aman was a vision and like he probably pushed a lot of stuff but I think that’s like so important and I think a lot of people don’t like you have to give him the chance. You know what I mean? like you have to try something new and people nowadays they don’t want to try anything new you know they just want to get a portfolio they want to send a video out and it’s perfect and I think it’s interesting how like you’re actively looking actively trying actively testing act you know trying new people out getting all this volume out and then per maybe a 100 people you speak to you’d find the next person so it would look like from the outside it’s like oh Iman keeps on doing these next big things and his his content is always getting to to the next level but behind it it’s like hundreds of people are getting screened hundreds of People are getting tested and given chances and everything and then boom, one person comes out. Yeah. But that’s all because like and out of a place that you least expect, right? Exactly. And I think it’s all because you guys were number one willing to lose money, willing to test, but you also understood that like what you get today is never the end all be all of the product. And I think that’s like really sick. I look at, you know, a client that I’m working with right now, you know, we’re trying to build out the team and the baseline of the team is everybody’s on sort of some form of like incentivized pay. And for editors, you know, if you have somebody who’s kind of like the editor that everybody leans on inside of an organization who’s on like a baseline salary plus an incentive, if he’s getting paid per video that he edits and then I come in and tell him we’re hiring another editor, he goes, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Yeah. How is that going to affect my baseline? Like, how am I going to be paid less? Yeah. And so I think that’s where I think the beauty of one obviously going back to you know full-time versus freelance but two I would always go into like the end goal was for me to not be editing anymore cuz like my skill set was not there. It was always just finding the next best editor to add to our add to our team, add to our team. Who’s the guy that can come in and kind of keep like changing things up or keep suggesting new things or, you know, being somebody that we need to kind of like fill a very specific role within the editing team? Would you say that it worked because you had good taste? Like good enough taste? Yeah. Like I I could just like I can look at a portfolio of editors and know when somebody can edit to some form of like emotion. They can take a clip that has, you know, no perceived value and then turn it into something that is like fun to watch or has entertainment value. Um, and I can kind I can pretty much tell when an editor has like, you know, the basics in After Effects, but it’s like, okay, they have the basics, but then do they have the attention to detail? So it’s like you look at it on the top level of like they can do animations, but then the bottom level is like what are the small things that they do to make sure that their output is perfect. Okay. And um I think now I want to get into like a bit of the juicy stuff which is what makes someone a really good head of content. This one is it’s an interesting one because I think there is such a problem in the space right now of like business owners looking for head of contents, right? Mhm. And we were talking before this, it’s like, you know, I have a client right now who wants me to mentor his creative director or his head of content, whatever you want to call it. And I came into it with my understanding that, you know, a head of content should have a balance between a creative mindset and an operational mindset. And he wants this person to just focus on the creative. And I think that’s fine, but I do think that at a certain point when you’re wanting to scale an operation, you need somebody that is going to take ownership and responsibility of like the operational side of things, but they have to have taste. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But like the space is so flooded now with incredibly talented people that it’s quite easy to like decipher good good content versus not, right? Um, but like if we’re really boiling it down to like the key elements that I would say that make up a good head of content is somebody who is creative, yes, but not that psycho creative. Yeah, we spoke about but is that person who has a balance between creativity but also operations like has the ability to see something, notice inefficiencies and be able to kind of create a system that solves that. So, okay. Now, like speaking of operations, what does an operation like look like for like a really good like content team? Say say for someone who’s watching, right? Like I wouldn’t say someone like completely brand new to content, but they’re somewhat making content, which is most people that you’ve worked with up until now. It’s like someone that’s like they’re doing okay, but they’re not doing crazy. Yeah. So, from your perspective, what’s the diff like what does that team look like? So, all the different layers or just like the team members involved? Well, if I’m watching, I’m probably thinking like, okay, like I’m going to try to get a video out every single week. Yeah. Um, so that’s like like this is what people are thinking, right? It’s like I have like a hell of thumbnails I have to film. Yeah. And then I have this YouTube video that I film and then I don’t even know when I’m going to get the YouTube video out. And then frame is.io is being sent every in every single group chat and I can’t keep up with that. Then it’s like, okay, we want to clip this video up. So the video now is now is getting clipped, but then it’s like, how does that process even work? Then it’s like the clips are getting out and then I have to the next YouTube video and then it’s like oh I also have to do a student interview that might go on this other channel and then it’s like oh we’re about to run a story sequence and we need to have this creative thing done and then oh wait I’m also going to run ads right so it’s like anyone who’s watching is like like you know like they just watch Iman Charlie and these guys and it’s like how do they get all that volume out so for me it’s like what does that machine look like? Yeah. So the best way to like split it up is you have three levels. So you have your seauite, you kind of have the people at the very top of the organization. Then you have your managers and then you have your makers. Mhm. Managers are people who have their foot in the making. So it’s a video editor who has uh leadership abilities. Uh or a thumbnail designer who has leadership abilities. And then at the maker level, you just have the people doing the thing. You have the video editors, you have the short form editors, you have the the thumbnail designers. Okay? What you want is clear distinctions between those levels. So the seauite managers, makers, you have one person assigned to each discipline whether it’s video, whether it’s short form, whether it’s thumbnails. That’s what how operation works. So a manager per section, a manager per like department. And some people try to get one guy to just Yeah. But like if you are if you are a business owner and you’re like I only have one thumbnail guy, I have one video editor and I have a short film. You can have one guy manage. Yeah. Those guys can be the owners. They can be the managers. They don’t have to be at the maker level because like they can just take on the responsibilities of the manager level. You don’t need to hire somebody specific for those roles. If you have a couple of people already in the organization, say you have like two or three editors, you have two like two thumbnail designers and you have like two short form editors. Okay. If you’re a business owner, you generally know what kind of like good leadership traits look like. So you can probably identify somebody who is willing to take on more responsibility and has the aptitude to be able to do it and be able to you know meet your expectations of the additional responsibilities you want to give them. So just sit down have a conversation with them and delegate tasks to them. Okay. And once you have those kind of clear lines in the sand of like manager and maker then it means that the makers are left to do the thing. Okay. And the managers are the ones who are connecting the dots. Right? So, it’s like I’m being told that there’s a YouTube video being filmed. Okay, the manager for the long form knows about it. Once the manager of the long form has cut down the video or the maker has cut down, the editors cut down the video, he knows to inform whoever is in charge of the short form department. So then they that footage gets sent to the short form department. The short form department start clipping up the footage. Same thing goes once the video is edited on the long form. It goes to the thumbnail team. And it’s like it went from me being the guy connecting all of the dots before I had that management team. You take that management team away, head of content is responsible for delegating and connecting everything. If you have that management level and everybody knows what is required of them like once there is an action. So a new video being filmed, what are the sort of subtasks that permeate off of that task? So it’s okay, video is being filmed, it needs to be edited, needs to get made, a thumbnail needs to be made. Okay, it needs to be sent to the short form team. Okay, ads have come in. how do we manage which editor is working on what so we can get the ads out quicker and make sure that the YouTube video doesn’t get affected. And so it’s like that management level was really like a breakthrough for me where I went from doing so much of like the admin or like the connecting of the dots within the department. And all it took was for me to have that management level and for me to sit down with them three times a week. Yeah. And whenever there was a question of like I need this, I’m like go talk to this person and if you need it again, talk to them again. And it’s like after that like everybody knew in that management level who to speak to who to speak to. That’s okay. So it was never hey Tristan we were waiting on this. If there was like say for example like the only thing where I would necessarily like have to get involved was it was like short form guys were waiting on Iman to shoot podcast clips with Alex and like our head of short form has messaged Iman multiple times and he hasn’t got back to him. I know I have a meeting scheduled with Iman later that day. So I’m like Iman get back to Hassan like he needs um he needs uh the podcast clips for the short form. We’re short on content. So it’s like I was able to like get answers quicker just by my proximity to maybe the key decision makers within the organization. But that management level if you are delegating tasks, you’re delegating the responsibilities according to the department. The amount of [ ] you can take off of your plate as a head of content is pretty incredible. And what that freed me up to do was just monitor the teams, monitor the interpersonal relationships within the teams, make sure everyone’s happy, make sure everyone’s getting paid enough. And then also work on the projects like the events, work on the projects like which we’re going to get to. Yeah. Well, I’m sure we’ll get we’ll unpack that. Everyone’s still curious about that. Yeah. And like just make sure that the team is progressing and like freed me up to do the higher ROI things in the business. But before we go into the events, um so obviously right now everyone’s talking about like creative director and everything. It’s so funny because no one talks about a head of content, right? Like when people when told people like, “Oh, like was Tristan like his creative director?” I’m like, “No, that’s probably the creative stuff was more so Alex.” And then people are like, “How does that make sense?” And then I’m like, “Is this like structure behind the the like the madness?” And this is the madness, you know? So, what’s the like for someone watching right now? Everyone is always putting job posts, you know, and um Hassan’s behind the camera smiling because he spoke about this the other day, but like everyone is looking for like a creative director, which is basically which basically means like give me this one person and they will just figure everything out. What’s the actual difference between a creative director and a head of content? I mean, you answered it. Like, it’s it’s the craziness and the chaos of a creative director having all of these incredible ideas and like taking the content and maybe taking it down a road that is different to what is on the sort of current content plan. Mhm. And a head of content is somebody who is coming in maybe has half of the creativity of that creative director, but is so operationally minded that knows how to build out all of the systems and build the foundation within a team. That means that once the content starts taking off and the business owner wants to then scale their output, everything is there like already built out. And so a head of content can be equally as creative. But I think creative directors, I would say, are so hyperfixated on the creative, so hyper like they’re so tapped into the culture. They’re so tapped into niches and the types of content that are being filmed that they can easily identify this is a great video, this is a great format. We need to take it to this niche. A head of content is somebody that can do that. But you know 50% of their time is also split up by looking at how teams are structured, how teams are paid like what do you like what are the workflows between you know managers and makers and building out that structure so that one when the business owner wakes up one day and he goes I want to post [ ] five times a day with that team. It’s like that head of content goes you’re not going to be able to do that with the team that you currently have. You need to build out you need to have these people come in. These are the people that are going to be responsible for that. You’re not going to have like you the business owner are not going to have to hire these people because the manager in the short form team is trained up, knows how to interview people, knows how to screen and and find good candidates. That’s so interesting. And then it’s like everywhere down like I didn’t I never had to onboard Yeah. any team members. Like as soon as the decision was made, the manager of the team or the department would know who to then speak to to then get this person on boarded, get their email set up, get the matter to everything. It’s like that level of delegation is not laziness. It’s just complete efficiency. Wow. Cuz it just means that I don’t have to sit there and [ ] add this person to Slack or add like create this person’s email. It’s like everybody had kind of their roster of responsibilities and if it if it meant that they had to then go notify somebody else, they would know what to do. Okay. And so having a head of content means that systems like that get built out. Mhm. I would say that uh creative directors are like we said so hyperfixated on the content side of things and like the creative side of things that they can take your content to a next level. A head of content can take your content to the next level but at a slower pace. Mh. But the systems that they build out will create a content engine or content machine that has the ability to scale and has the structure where the business owner or the head of content can kind of take a step out of the the operations and just focus on their highest ROI things. Okay. Interesting. And um when it comes to like YouTube, you guys are obviously really known for that. Yeah. Um, I know we spoke the other day and you were really big on like, you know, I did my stuff, we did our things, but there was also drawing up narratives, which you mentioned like Iman, Louise also had a lot to do with. Um, I think that’s a component that even the first time you mentioned it to me, I was like, it’s more interesting than what I thought because people would assume then it’s like, okay, oh, so it was like, you know, just Tristan and Alex, you know, but then it’s like there’s another part to the puzzle. And so what did that look like um between you know someone like Luis who was like if I if I hear right like he’s like trying to drawing the narrative of like so he was our CMO so he was the driving factor behind all of our launches in the sense of like he was the one crafting together all of like the concept with Iman okay he would go away and script all of the VSSLs he would script all of the event videos whether they were pre-recorded or the live webinars and he’s spending weeks and weeks and weeks just creating these pieces of copy that are like perfect, right? Yeah. And so he at certain times like when we were doing the pre-recorded stuff, you know, the things where it’s like, you know, whale season, digital renaissance, times up, all of those things that we’re pretty well known for, like they would come up with the marketing team would come up with the overall narrative and kind of like the time period or the I guess the the angle which we’re approaching this event. And then it would be up to me, Alex and Iman to curate visuals, to create a narrative that basically accompanies and um emphasizes all of the points that we’re trying to make. It kind of brings it all together. And so Luis, like like I said, I was a cog in a in a much bigger machine. Like I will be the one to sit here and say that I took no credit for any of the events. Like Luis was the mastermind behind that 100%. and him and Iman work so closely during I can imagine and it’s like crazy like Luis would spend weeks and weeks and weeks working on these these scripts and then we would go into like a period like if we’re talking the pre-recorded stuff we would go into a period of like maybe 2 weeks where we’re filming or maybe like 10 days where we sit down and we film everything the first episode second episode the trailers all of it in like that time period and during that Alex and I are sitting down with either people that we bring in like Ka Tyler. I’m sure maybe you know him, maybe you don’t. Um he came in and like helped us um create the narrative as well, create the treatments. He was very much the director. We were probably more on the producing side. And so Luis creates the sort of he creates the overall angle and the overall kind of message and then we’re tasked with creating it and turning it into a vision. Okay. And for the webinars, it’s a bit different. It’s the scripts are done by Luis again. Yeah. And so it’s like Luis and Aman kind of figuring out the message, the narrative, what they agree on first draft. Then it’s like you guys get the thing. It’s like okay, now we need to pick like the venue of where it’s going to be. Like who who picks actually? Like I’m actually I think everyone’s curious like who picks where the events like happen cuz they’re always at like different locations. So I think it really comes down to man’s opinion. Okay. would go like we we we filmed one in like a studio on a stage for 8 figure personal brand launch which was more of the higher ticket offer and that was like we needed to film feel like a sort of inerson seminar or inerson summit you know kind of like one of the big ones that you know the Tony Robbins do the grazies do and so it’s like okay we’ll find a stage so I had have to find a sound stage that had a um some form of like LED screen had the ability to do live streaming figure out what exactly were their capabilities or bandwidth for internet and then figure out how we’re going to set up all of the cameras and it would just be a lot of back and forth meetings me Alex with that company with that production company in the the venue and then the times where it’s like it’s in Iman’s house like we would do that just based off of like one convenience but two we knew that like we were going to be starting these live streams at 9:00 at night. These could go on until like one, two, three o’clock in the morning. It’s free to shoot at any mass versus shooting in a studio. There’s a cost. And not that that that’s like the main reason, but we did feel that like the experience wasn’t elevated from being on a stage and having multiple cameras. It was like I think people just want to learn from Iman as if they’re sat down in in an office with him. So if someone’s like watching thinking, “Oh, we need to do this crazy thing.” It’s like doesn’t really matter. It’s really Yeah. It’s just a feeling like yeah for us we knew that we wanted to kind of control the variables. We knew these things were going to run on. We don’t want to feel any sort of pressure to stop it because there is a hard cut off time from the studio. We knew that we could build an environment where it was very, you know, comfortable and the Wi-Fi connection was incredible and we would have this the exact same setup and it would, you know, the streams would go off without a hitch. And when we approached it like that, it was like, okay, great. We just like the most we’re going to do is probably like improve the backgrounds or shoot them in different places in the house. And at that point like it’s just logistics figuring out, okay, if we’re going to shoot in the living room, how do we get a wired internet connection into the computer that is running the live stream in the living room versus the office? Mhm. Um but that’s just pretty hire Wi-Fi specialist. They come out and they [ ] fix it in an afternoon. Yeah. Um, but kind of like the other studios were just dependent on where Iman was, right? We had another launch that we did and we had to shoot it in a studio in London. And a lot of these places are pretty well suited to live streaming now. And so it’s just finding one that fits within the budget that is has a decent uh travel time to get to and basically just meets our expectations. And so in that scenario, we would say, “Okay, we have a three-day live event. We would book four days and that day before is just a day testing, myself and the team that’s running the studio.” So that we have everything set up so that the day that we do the launch, Iman just walks in, everything set up, maybe he runs a test for about 30 minutes and everything’s good to go. Cuz Iman hates to sit and just wait for [ ] to happen. He’s like, I want to sit down and I want to record and then I want to go do something else. It’s like he can’t like he can’t just sit here and not do something. Yeah. So, if he’s waiting around, he’ll be on his phone and be texting. So, we we knew that his time is precious. Yeah. So, we we knew going into all of these shoots that we would have to like optimize or at least go into it where everything is planned out, everything is set and ready to go. Um, so it just varied based off of what was the event type and then where exactly was Iman in the world. Okay, that’s so interesting. Yeah. Okay. Um, well, I guess now we get to the juicy part. Okay. Right. Um, obviously the main question everyone’s gonna have is, you know, did you did you leave? Was it a split? Did you put out a video that was like bad, which obviously you didn’t, but like people are going to have all sorts of ideas. Lots of gossip, right? Yeah. Exactly. Cuz I mean nowadays, right, if someone’s leaving, it’s like, you know, who just leaves because they want to? Well, I guess in your case, I mean, I know now it’s pretty different. Um, what like you know, what made you want to switch? Like I guess what was the situation? So, the funny thing is is like everybody that I speak to that knows myself or Iman is like, “What happened? Is everything okay?” Yeah. like like they want more gossip than I can give them because it like honestly it couldn’t have happened in a more amicable way. I think if we look back at it like when I joined Iman I was doing agency navigator like I bought his program and I think like we were talking about when you hire people if somebody has like an inkling to become an entrepreneur you take note of that because at some point they may want to leave. I knew that at some point I was going to want to do something for myself, but I think I put it off for so many years because I was along on the journey. I knew what we were building and I thought it was so impactful. And not that any of that changed, but I think I just saw an opportunity to step away and and do it, having built such a reputation by working with Yeah. the man himself. And I think Iman being so clued in and him and I having such a close relationship over the years, he also knew. Yeah. So it wasn’t like a massive shock to him. I mean the one thing I’ll say is like you also like I mean the way you explained it to me is you built such good systems that it’s like it just became uninteresting at that point. I I don’t maybe not uninteresting but it’s like you kind of did what you had to do and you built the system for the machine to run without you. And so it’s like what’s next? Yeah. You know, that’s what it sounded like for me, which is like that’s probably the best compliment you could get to like I did what I had to do and like, you know, I delivered, which I think at the end, yes, you guys was a working relationship, but it’s like, you know, he came in, he gave you a chance and you literally came and like transformed it and you did what you had to do and it’s like next chapter kind of, right? For sure. I think the the kind of like defining moment was I think it was sort of towards the end of last year. here. I had to go away for like a friend’s wedding and it was like in the run-up period before an event and usually I go off on these trips and it’s like, you know, you get one or two days and then messages start flying in. Hey, we need you to do this or hey, where’s this blah blah blah and on on these like four days I didn’t get a single message. I was like, [ ] Okay. Like, hm. Yeah. In my mind, I’m like, [ ] maybe something really bad’s happened and this person hasn’t told me or everything’s going fine. Yeah. And obviously everything was going fine. And I think like like you said, yeah, I had almost served my purpose. Like the teams had gotten so good that I didn’t need to oversee nearly as much as I thought I would need to. And so to your point, I don’t think the work ever got boring cuz there was always something to be working on. Like the pace in which we would do things was just remarkable. Mhm. But I think it was like for me it was the uh it was the sign that it might be the right time to go do something else. It’s not like I’m leaving them in a worse off position. Mhm. I’m leaving them where everything is working and so why not take the opportunity now to go see what it’s like doing something for myself. Mhm. And yeah, I was so worried about it having been the second longest standing team member at the company. Mhm. But Iman, yeah, couldn’t have been more gracious about it and like left on such good terms that we’re still very good friends today. And I think there were so many people that I saw leave the company where, you know, it was just like complete uh communication cut off because they left on bad terms. Mhm. But in this regard, it was like my mission was to not do that and make sure that I stay close with all of those guys because, you know, I wasn’t I’m not the person the personality that I am today or have the experience that I am today without that opportunity. So, I can’t negate that. And older people I worked with over those years was like incredible. So, it’s just I think everybody goes through chapters of their life where it’s like this is what I need to be focusing on and that chapter ended and I was ready to to move on to the next. I think everyone’s wondering now like you know like what are you up to? Like what’s what’s the you know what like what is you’re up to today? Um what’s the move right now? What do you I think the main thing I would ask you is like when did you get that like feeling of like I could maybe help other people with something. What was that something? Where did you get that itch? Uh for me it was just always wanting if I like looking back at it wanting to join and work with Iman. And I was like, I’m going to work with this guy for a year, learn all of his kind of like behind the [ ] curtain secrets. Yeah. And then just go off and do that. Like that was so naive. Um, but I felt that I had learned so much over these last 5 years. Mhm. One, as like a person with a skill set, but two, also as somebody that is more businessminded than I was 5 years ago. And so I felt like I had really learned a lot from Iman of what it takes to run a business. I’m still learning those lessons cuz he was keeping a lot of them secret in terms of like the real [ ] It was more about just kind of seeing what I how I could turn what I learned with Iman into a service or skill set. And for me, it’s like it’s changing every day. You know, we spoke about it um very soon after I left and it was sort of one idea now very much it’s sort of shifting to another thing of like how I’m best positioned to help business owners. M and I think for me I had originally gone into it saying that it’s creative oversight and you know watching and seeing the creative process or content system within a business owner’s uh operations of like ideation through to the delivery through to the packaging all of that and it’s like covering all of that and it is that what I’m finding is f is yielding the best results or is is kind of like building the best foundations for business owners is all of like the system side like really looking at a business owner’s operations and saying that you’re losing time here or this is a [ ] inefficiency. Like you shouldn’t be focusing on that. You’re pouring too much time and energy into the wrong thing. Focus it here. And so that’s I think is kind of the new or not new direction. I would say it’s just it’s the direction that I’m learning that business owners find the most valuable because the problem like we spoke about is business owners want somebody to come in and solve all their [ __ ] problems and do not work. And so for me it’s like finding what I’m good at, doing that, and then having the conviction to then be able to do that for other people. And right now, that’s kind of where I’m at is having left is very much finding my footing of how I can best help business owners. And once I’ve done that, then I know exactly with conviction what exactly is the biggest ROI for business owners and then just replicating that. Yeah. And and like in today’s world, what do you think is like the main place someone should start? Is it YouTube? Is it Instagram? Like what what do you feel like is the biggest lever that someone can pull to really like focus on? I think the best way to look at it is that short form is a platform or Instagram. You know, anything that is you short form, Tik Tok, Instagram reels, those things are great for developing a personal brand that is maybe here one day and gone the next, right? you can. It’s all about volume and it’s all about what staying up to date and people seeing the next new thing from you. I think YouTube is an asset that can long live after you stop posting. It’s like, you know, you look at what Iman’s done and documented his journey and that that has formed the foundation for everything that we talk about in terms of like I was doing this, then I did this, then I did this. you can see my journey and you can see how I changed as an individual on my channel and not just like from the documenting side of things but like actually delivering value to people who then become indoctrinated into you the personality and like basically following you because they really like what you can provide them in terms of value but also you as a personality and so YouTube is something that is just going to be your legacy whereas short form is something that is maybe, you know, is always going to be like focusing on the next hot trend or or like trying to stay on top legacy versus like new trends. Yeah. And I think if you look at it that way, then it’s like you know what you’re putting into it. You know, like Sam got it spoke about, you know, Dan talking to him and saying like, I’m just going to do go crazy with content for the next 10 years and if nothing comes from it, then great. But we are doing it for the next 10 years. And I think business owners now are like, I need to go into short form and like I need to get hundreds of thousands of views and generate leads. It’s like generally it’s it’s a sick and cruel world in the sense that people who go into it with that mindset generally don’t see the success. It’s the people who go into it and go, I just want to see what happens. Yeah. Those are the people that actually catch on and like can really develop audiences and that that’s not something that you can kind of like teach per se, but it’s a mentality. It’s a mindset. Exactly. So I would always like for me I think YouTube is is the biggest because you can always pull back on you can always like focus and double down on short form at any time right but YouTube is something that you’d be really proud of in 10 years time if you started making videos to be able to look back and see how far you’ve come in terms of skill set of filming yourself on video or the value that you were develing
the steps of how you developed as an educator. creator or business owner and be and having that proof. And I think if if there’s anything that people should take away from today, it’s like start a YouTube channel and start posting now because then if you don’t like you just he’ll be behind everybody else. I think even like obviously I get to see the behind the scenes of everything. Um the people that make the most amount of money is from YouTube. Like you know we see all the data every single day and it’s like Instagram and Tik Tok can feel like quick dopamine hits. Yeah. But the real audiences still buy from YouTube. Like we’ll see a lot of people come from Tik Tok to Instagram. I think that could I mean obviously it’s like shameless plug but that’s people don’t really understand it. Yeah. But now that I get to see the actual correlation. Yeah. If you just have Instagram and Tik Tok you’re not going to make that much money. And actually funny enough you’re not really going to build like you’re going to build an audience but that’s just going to disappear super fast. Yeah. But if you build that YouTube with it that’s where the conversions really happen. And that’s where the nurturing really happens and that’s where everything like actually happens. Yeah. Um and we track it like rigorously and what we realize is like the offers that do the best for example per follower per subscriber 50% of their uh traffic source or their audience is on YouTube. Yeah. Which is like it’s substantially high. Even like S and I were talking about it 10x the business just from just from that platform itself. And I think that that people should have that as a foundation and everything else should pretty much like lead into it. Yeah. Um, and obviously we were talking about the other day that’s a true operation. I think if you’re just doing short form, it’s the short form people love to like, you know, sit on it and say like, “Oh, this is the best way to do it and everything.” But it’s like very Yeah. like this the whole time. 100%. And I think like if you just think about it, like I think it was Lyndon, you guys had your conversation. It was like, who are you most likely to buy from? Is it the guy that is watching, you know, five or six reels of you a day at 30 seconds a pop, or is it the guy that sits down and watches 28 minutes out of 30 minute video and then goes on and watches the next one? Yeah. Obviously, it’s the second guy. Yeah. Right. And I think like people who create content on YouTube and build out these audiences, those audiences are just cultlike. They are following you because they love what you provide in terms of value and also the way that you present it. And they will like the people who are binging your videos are the people that will end up buying from you without hesitation. Yeah. Versus short form content where if if you’re thinking about just like the amount of time it takes to sort of indoctrinate somebody or like build enough trust for them to go, I think I’m going to buy from this person, especially if it’s like a higher price point item or offer. Like if they’re sitting down and they’re watching maybe one or two 15-inute videos, like how many short form videos do they have to watch in succession? Mhm. To match the same amount of time after watching a 15-inute YouTube video. How many is it, right? Like it’s it’s a lot of [ ] short form reels. It’s a lot of scrolling, you know? We did we did the math. It’s like 480 times 480 reels to match one YouTube video depending on the length, but like typically that’s what it So then like that in itself just based off of like how you know you and I consume short form content. No one’s going to an account and just going and watching every single one out of succession. Whereas I think nowadays this online space everybody is like YouTube is a tool for growth. People see it as that and so it’s just like the perfect tool to pour out pour in all this energy. Yeah. And if you’re just doing short form like you say it’s like you’ve you’ve done something. Mhm. But I think having like a content system is being able to say, “We’re doing short form, but we’re going to introduce YouTube, and then we’re going to introduce a new channel, and then we’re going to take the content from that channel, we’re going to repost it on on the other short form channels.” And and I think that’s why like what you’re doing now is so interesting. I think the first time we spoke, obviously, Mer has put us in touch. Yeah. Uh he’s like, “Oh, Tristan, you need to find out about Trackio.” And that was like I was like, “Oh, shit.” Um but the first time we got put in touch, we had our first call, I was like, “This is super interesting.” Because the reason why the YouTube guy doesn’t do IG and the IG guy doesn’t want to do YouTube is because it’s all a cope and they’re all coping because they don’t have a Tristan, right? They don’t have that system to like be able to do both when it’s just, you know, it’s like if you want to I it’s like for fulfillment, right? You have three, four parts of fulfillment and then you have a couple people handle it. With content, it’s the same, but no one’s been able to teach it properly to anyone because no one I think no one yet has done it at a high scale. Sure. you know, and I think that’s why what you’re doing next is like super interesting because it’s the world is going that way now. Every company’s becoming a content company. Every creator needs someone. Yeah. There’s no more excuse to do it. And like you have to have both. Even like um we tried to look at it like right now with Tracker, we thought, okay, we’re going to stay on YouTube only. And then I was like, it’s actually impossible because everyone who’s really good at YouTube is like multi- channelneled. Yeah. Right. And so everyone who’s on YouTube is also on on Instagram and everyone who’s on YouTube is also on Twitter because they’re all different forms of communicating. 100%. Right. And I mean, even Aman, he’s everywhere. And I think now we’re going to go into this world of I don’t just follow this person on one place, I follow him everywhere. And it’s like, if you want to be followed everywhere, and if you want to be able to communicate in four different ways through email, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, and then all these different platforms, you need to have a Tristan. And so I think that’s going to be the next couple years for content are going to be really interesting. I think so. Um I think so, too. If someone right now today is has a business or you know they want to create content for themselves or they want to grow, what’s the number one thing you’ve learned in the past five years advice you would give them? That’s it’s a good question. How do you distill five years into one piece of advice? I would say two things. Content is a long game. We know that. But it’s also not a calculated game. It is a game of trying a lot of [ ] and seeing what works. You can’t just approach content as like, okay, what is the next video that we need to go viral? What is the next video that need to go viral? I think YouTube as a platform is it goes through seasons, algorithms change, you know, your audience’s attention span changes, your what your audience like changes. And so I think the creators who have this approach of like I want to try this type of video, I want to try this type of video, I want to try this type of video, do well because when things change and the market changes within the the audience space on YouTube, they’re better positioned to capitalize on moments like that versus the guy who’s just sat behind his desk, done Loom videos for the last however many days and he’s just doing that form of content. like that form of content will always do well. Yes. But I think if we’re talking about having the ability to do this long term and always being able to do this and like not being drained by content, but actually being kind of, you know, having it give you energy. I think if you approach it with the mindset of like always trying things and not hyperfixating on just what is the next viral video or what is the video that needs to get 100k views or how this video needs to get, you know, a set amount of leads coming in through the door. It’s like come at it with the approach of like we need to try a lot of things and fail at a lot of things and then learn what works and what doesn’t. It’s the same thing you would do in a business, but why does everything need to be calculated in content? That’s Yeah. Right. And I think some the people who do that well get ahead of trends and they can capitalize that and they see the success from that. Mhm. People who maybe get too hyperfixated on the outcome or hyperfixated on just like one format don’t branch out far enough in terms of like just mixing things up for their audience. So their audience will eventually either like surpass them in terms of success grow up or lose interest. Okay, that’s actually a better answer than what I thought. Yeah. And then the second thing is um I think everybody is looking to find their next head of content or creative director. Mhm. I was not found. I was developed. I was put into a position where I could grow into that role and become that person. And I think a lot of business owners don’t think like that or they haven’t thought to do that because they haven’t humanized their team. Mhm. And so instead of trying to find the next guy that’s going to solve all your problems, look at it from a long-term lens and say this guy on my team, I think he has the aptitude to do the job, but he’s also got that attitude to want to get better at it every single day. Who is that person? Let’s identify them. Let’s sit down and have a conversation with them and see if we can build a road map that in the next 6 months, the next year, they become that head of content. So then you’re not finding the next guy, you’re creating him inside of your business. So that that would be Wow. That’s like we leave on those like two solid bangers. Um I have one more I think is a bit more meaningful. If you have to if you had to give advice to the 20-year-old version of you back in Bermuda. Oh yeah. Photography. Uh but let’s say like the you know the version of you from like 9 years ago. Yeah. What would you tell that person? Um, like just what would I tell them about what I’m doing now? Or just like what would you tell that person? Words of advice. All of the decisions that you’re making right now that you think are the wrong ones lead you to this place. And I wouldn’t change anything that I ever did because where I’m at now and all the things that I’ve been able to do and all the things that I’ve been able to achieve and be a part of is incredible. And I think like at that time when that thing happened in 2020, uh I was like, [ ] I just don’t know what I’m going to be doing. I don’t know. And then it was, should I buy this thousand course? Is it not going to be worth it? And you know, am I going to dedicate enough time? And you know, at that time, I think that in my mind, I was like, this is a lot of money. I’m just like, it’s like it may not be worth it. And I think like having that insight to be tapped into what Iman is doing to then following him to then getting that job application and then you know making the mistakes and you know failing within Iman’s organization gave me all of the lessons that then led me here today. And I think that is something where back then I would have loved the encouragement to know what this was going to turn into. Mhm. But I think I was so naive by coming into it by thinking like I’m just going to do this for a year. I’m going to do this for the year. But my intuition kept me here. And so all of the decisions, whether they were right or wrong, led me to where I am today. And I wouldn’t change anything about that. Okay, I think we have it there. Uh, thank you for everything. Honestly, I think this is like really valuable. Good. I think anyone who’s watching will have an insane amount of value to get from this. And um I think the next couple years for you are going to be a lot more interesting than you even realize. And I think there’s a lot of value for you to provide. And I think you guys like really cool stuff. So, um, where I mean I guess anyone who’s watching now is probably thinking like, “Dude, this guy’s a [ ] genius, right?” Like, like, you know, how can they like reach out to you? You don’t even have a website. That’s the irony, right? It’s like a head of content doesn’t even post content himself, but I’m working on that. I’m working on that. Um, yeah, my Instagram, Tristan Kerode. Um, and then YouTube as well. That should be coming very, very soon. Um, so yeah, that’s what like send you what should they DM you like? Uh, oh god, I need you. I need you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Help. Help. Okay. That’s it. It was good having you, man. My pleasure, man.