TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

From Lists To Legacy: How WatchMojo Scaled Pop Culture On YouTube

• vidIQ • Season 6 • Episode 6

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We dig into WatchMojo’s 20-year climb and the choices that made the brand durable: focus on pop culture, a reliable list format, and a bet that YouTube would become television. Ash shares fair use tactics, Content ID battles, and why evergreen thinking outlasts trends.

• four pillars for scale across focus, lists, YouTube programming, and legal rigor
• how fair use works in practice and why systems matter
• navigating Content ID, platform neutrality, and policy pressure
• building evergreen lists instead of chasing virality
• spin-offs like MissMojo and MojoPlays and what worked
• when experiments stall and how to sunset or pivot
• shorts for discovery, mids for revenue, longform for FAST growth
• platform strategy across YouTube, Snap, TikTok, and Instagram
• starting from zero: picking niches, testing white space, staying authentic

For anyone who’s watching on YouTube course, I don’t even have to tell you the links are in the description because you already know who Watch Mojo is. If you’re listening to the audio podcast, there will be links in the show notes, just in case you forget.


SPEAKER_00:

Things take time, videos are expensive, but I'm like, isn't it more interesting to kind of build something that stands the test of time and then people can go back to it years later?

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, welcome to the Only Podcast. It's here to help you grow everything about your life. Of course, I'm here every single week to help you grow your YouTube channel. I'm Travis, and today I have a super special guest, someone who has been a part of the YouTube ecosystem for so long. Your ears are gonna be filled with incredible bounce of information. Today I'm here with Ash from Watch Mojo. How are you doing, Ash?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm very good. Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's super exciting. I get um for a little uh behind the scenes, I get emails all the time for people pitching like uh CEOs and and you know, all types of people. And I I never read I read what's going on and then I never apply to them. This one was interesting to me because in the subject and in the the email, uh Watch Mojo came up, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, that watch mojo, like the one that I've been watching for years, the one that has been around for seemingly forever, that watch mojo. And when I confirmed that was the case, I'm like, uh, yeah, we can do this. I think we can I think we can talk to Ash about this. Um, welcome, Ash. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I mean, we don't do that much marketing, and that's the beauty of YouTube. Um, but we did bring on a marketing person finally because we, you know, we're we just celebrated our 20-year anniversary. Technically, January 23rd, 2006 was the first time we uploaded a video to our website. And then shortly thereafter, I was like, I think this YouTube thing is not a flash in the pen.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Um, I definitely want to talk about like that whole thing, but before we get into kind of how you started and stuff, um, yeah, let's talk about the 20-year thing. So, what's going on uh at Watch Mojo that um that you're super excited to talk about? I mean, 20 years is for most businesses, it doesn't happen. Let's just be honest. For any kind of business, it doesn't usually happen. So uh, you know, uh feel free to like take your bow here and just kind of talk about um how you've made the this successful and who's helped you along the way.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, when I was in college and working in restaurants, my manager would say most restaurants last about eight, 11 months. So yeah, most business is hard, right? Like, let's just be honest. And the beauty of the web, the democratization of this racket means everybody could be sitting here, you know, so it's more cluttered. Um, you know, the reality is a line I like is what got you here won't get you there. Um, and uh I think you know, we've obviously done a pretty good job. I mean, false modesty aside, you know, until recently I would tell my team, we're the we're the unknown startup from Montreal, you know, we've got to prove ourselves. And I think that's a good kind of war cry, but it's also like an insult to them who do a great job of taking a certain vision and turning it into a reality. So, you know, even though I've always obviously loved pop culture and clearly lists, you know, I'm a writer. I've I've written books, write articles. Um, but we kind of saw where the puck was headed. You know, there's a saying that the best investor or entrepreneur is a social scientist. So um, you know, I could obviously see about, you know, 15 years ago when especially Disney bought Marvel, LucasArts, and Pixar. I was like, guys, Disney did not buy these companies with all this IP to bury it like a bone in the backyard. Right. Um, and you know, we were doing a lot of different things, you know. We we kind of I thought focus was we we we do things in video, but you know, a lot of informal advisors, informal mentors who were more experienced than I were like, that's not really focus. Like you gotta pick automotive, finance, music, whatever. Um, and so after the hundredth venture capitalists turned me down, nothing personally, just nobody wanted to invest in content. I was sitting in Madison Square Park in New York with one of my advisors, and he was like, Well, what are you gonna do, Ash? You've ran out of money. I mean, I'd ran out of money five years before, even. And I went back to my team and I said, this is what we should do. We should really, really um focus on pop culture, specifically geek culture, because kids who are reading comic books in the 80s and 90s, they're now in Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street. And this is going to just grow. And this was before streaming and you know, peak TV. But I was like, it's also not just a business argument. We love this stuff. Even when we're producing the cooking videos and the fashion tips or whatnot, we're talking about Seinfeld, we're talking about Game of Thrones. So I was like, passion alone is not a recipe for success, but it's a requirement, so to speak. So I was like, let's focus on the pop culture universe. And then second, I was like, you know what? I have to swallow my pride. Yeah, I like like essay style videos, but I'm like, think of Letterman, Lane, Moses and the Ten Commandments. And like mankind has gravitated to lists. And if you think of what's happening in terms of shorts, um, you know, humans have a short attention span, and the proliferation of content is just going to make people. So I was like, I will sit and watch a top 10 Beyonce video, but I may not watch her bio. You know, that was kind of like the thesis. And then third, I was like, look, YouTube is not some flash on the pen. It's really the future of media. And I was like, I know at first I thought we're late to it. Like we were producing videos, publishing it on watchmojo.com, putting it on at the time, you know, even before us, it was like Gooba and Rever. But you know, we would syndicate it to Daily Motion Meta Cafe, we would push it out to Yahoo and MSN, as well as YouTube. But I was like, YouTube is different. And there was a lot of creators who would just kind of take their video, put it in banner, and put it next to an article, which is kind of like fabricated garbage if you think about it. Like it's fine, it's contextual, but it's not really a video view. I was like, the place to be is YouTube. So I was like, let's program for that community. And I used to, not moonlight, I was on the comment section just because I love feedback and I'm a man of the people, as they say. Like, I'd like to engage with our fans. I would be commenting as Mr. X, getting feedback and whatnot. Um, and so I was like, let's really, really program for YouTube. Let's see what people want, and we'll do what we want to do, but there needs to be a marriage, you know, to nail discovery and recovery. And then the fourth one, which I think would be intellectually dishonest not to point to, my background was finance. I was always more of a humanities guy, loved psychology, sociology, and you need to master that and know history to succeed in life, let alone business. But I was like, I studied finance. I wasn't a lawyer, but I could definitely like act like one, so to speak. I was like, we work with these rights holders, they send us electronic press kits. We can use clips. It's just do we want to take that risk, especially under fair use or fair dealing in Canada and the UK. But I was like, copyright is is pretty clear. Yes, it's a gray area, but if you build the systems and you tell your team, like, okay, we don't want the inmates running the asylum and anything goes and then avoiding lawsuits. I was like, we could, we should feature clips because at the time, and like, you know, we had launched in 2006, but 2012 were still a bit all over the place. But I was like, everybody's doing these talking head videos, and that's fine. You know, I love hearing Caroline's experience in Chicago. But I was like, let's go get from tourism boards and in movies, obviously under fair use. I was like, let's use clips. And so those four became our pillars. And then we we kind of right place, right time, caught lightning in a bottle. And then, you know, we had 10,000 subscribers in 2012, and then one to 100,000 next year, a million, five million, 10 million, and then our success drew competition, which is great. As an entrepreneur, you both love and hate competition. I love it because it allows us to stay humble. Now, that was like the last 20 years, and we could go deeper, but I don't think what got us here will get us there. So we are moving into things like some scripted projects. I've always dabbled in that area. And I think with worlds colliding and YouTube and yes, theatricals in disarray and streaming is cutting back and optimizing, but I mean, storytelling will always be there. You know, so I think that is an area that I'm leading the company. But, you know, because I say you can't expect extraordinary outcomes by doing the ordinaries, but you can only chase extraordinary things by doing ordinary things in extraordinary ways. And I know that sounds like a lot of words and you know, fortune cookie stuff, but it is. So the team is incredible. They, they, you know, we they we could take any topic we want, create videos that look incredibly like well done. Sure, there was the odd mistake just because of stats, how much content we cover. But I am gonna be pushing the company towards these things that are more not iterative, more evolutionary, even revolutionary. Um, and yeah, and so really exciting. And people sometimes go, why do you still work? I'm like, it's fun, you know. Like, what am I gonna do? I mean, there's a lot I could do, but I do love what I do, is the point.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. That's that's fantastic. And over those years, uh, just under 26 million subscribers, 17 uh billion views, which is uh a number almost 18, which is a number that you can't even really wrap your head around because it doesn't seem real. It just seems like something someone typed out somewhere. Um, but let's talk a little bit about you. Actually, kind of mentioned this briefly when you talked about copyright. I know a lot of people are probably thinking, yeah, how does Watch Mojo get away with all these clips and stuff that you know a lot of smaller creators or even mid-sized creators are like, I keep getting copyright claims and stuff. What does that look like on your side? How does that whole process work?

SPEAKER_00:

So that's a fact check. 26 million on the court flagship English language panel, but also if you add like Miss Mojo, Mojo Plays, Mojo Espanyol, which has an eight, nine million, we're at 50 million on your. We're gonna talk about those too, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

We're definitely gonna talk about those.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So, and then obviously the snap TikTok numbers gets us to seven and five. Now, so it starts off. Let's be again, I like to be intellectually honest. Like, if somebody came to me, I'd be like, Yeah, I don't know if you'd be able to replicate Watch Modro in 2026, uh, because the world is different. So it did start off with us actually, like, we interviewed Justin Bieber when he was pre-pubescent, you know, like he was a child. Sorry to be crude. Yeah, we interviewed Lady Gaga outside of some bar in Montreal when she was an unknown element, uh, you know, uh artist. So we used to work, I mean, we still do, but like we used to work with these labels when movies would roll into town on their junk kit. One advantage of being in Montreal was it was in New York, where it was like a thousand media outlets, they would do an interview with like the main TV channel, the main newspaper, the main radio station, and we were like digital, so that we would get access to these folks. So we had a rapport, and when they would send us like electronic press kits, usually on a DVD, that's how far back. I actually have a beta tape, like symbolic, to be like, I didn't break into Warner music to get this, they sent it to us, right? So so I would basically proactively go to them, and I remember vividly going, could we sign a master license agreement where we agree not to use clips for longer than X or in this way? You know, and um and they were like, Yeah, we don't do that. But I was like, okay, teach me, enlighten me. Why? They're like, well, first of all, it's not worth our time, it's not our business. Like we sell at the time albums, or now they aim for streams. We want to put butts in the seats. So they're like, if you're just using short, and because I knew these people, they're like, if you're just using short clips, they're like, you can do that as editorial under fair use. Now, this predated content ID. And then me being just a curious fella, I would then go and read up on the law, section 106 of the Copyright Act, Section 107. I was like, fair use. I'm like, this is incredible. You know, like when I discovered fair use, which I knew about, but like when I really went to, I was like, it was like I hit, I was like jackpot, not commercially, but just like wow, problem solving. Right. Right. Um, and so we basically, I kind of took the law, I studied it, and I read every single case study that had been, you know, there was like a NWA, uh, was it NWA, Two Life Crew that was pretty like formative as a case law. There was a lot of others which now escaped me, but that one I remember going, like, that's kind of the what we would point to if we got the sued. And so I kind of sat down with my team and I said, I know it sounds weird because you guys are journalism students, but I was like, this is the way the law works, and you know, it's a matter of do we want to take the risk? Would somebody litigate? We would probably prevail, but we don't even have money. But I was like, well, we'll deal with that if God forbid it happens. So we started off as a kind of like a pioneer, but always like not in a gray area, in the black, like in the white, let's say. It was like white, it was legal, it was no issue. Um, and I would always stress test that with rights holders that I knew. I was like, we're doing this, I just want to make sure, like, I'm not asking permission, but as a courtesy, and also I'd appreciate your feedback. And you know, it was like either I would say one explicit permission, two, implicit approval, or three, admittedly, reluctant acceptance. We don't want you to do this, but yeah, it's fair use. And I was like, you are like a if you're Fox, I'm like, well, Fox News relies on fair use in news. Um, you know, if you're NBC, you may not like that we use something from Universal, let's say at the time. But I was like, well, you do SNL and that's parody, and that's fair use. So I could kind of make the arguments. And so to kind of land the plane, then content ID kind of had to be built by YouTube because they were being sued by Viacom or Paramount now. And so the issue, ironically, I always go my 2010s were the PTSD a decade. The issue was not necessarily rights holders, but there's a term like a Mexican standoff where you got three guys shooting at each other. Yeah, we were just caught in between rights holders and these platforms who wanted to build systems, and what ended up happening is behind, and I've never really expanded on this, so this is a bit of a scoop. So around 2015, I wrote to YouTube, and it wasn't like this isn't fair or doom, it was like they're business people, they're gonna do what's best for their business as they should. I said, you know, there's a there's a there's a legislation like the Telecommunications Act that you guys rely on, and you basically say you're neutral, you know, like uh you are a platform, you're not responsible for hate speech if if you take it down, like if it really crosses the line, and you're not responsible, then according to another legislation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, that you're saying, you know, we're neutral, we're just a platform. So long as when you receive uh DMCA notification, you let us the channel that uploads it know that they might have to take it down and you could dispute it or not. And I was like, but you can't be both like judge, jury, or neutral and not neutral. I'm like, if you want to have the neutrality argument, I was like, your policies now are favoring rights holders. And I go, I understand they're more likely to sue you like Viacom. But I was like, that doesn't make it right. And it's not a question of like right morally or ethically, which could be a gray area. I was like, legally, you're you're shooting yourself in the foot. And when you speak like that to lawyers, even if you're not a lawyer and you're a layman, they're like, damn, like, kids got a point. So they had to like the reason, I mean, I'm a nobody, but the reason why today you could upload clips even on X or anywhere else, it's because we fought that fight, you know. And I believed in freedom of expression and media. I was born in Iran, where I see what happens when the government starts to take away freedom. So I was always like, not a martyr in that sense, you know, I was not, you know, but I was like, yeah, I believe in the freedom of the press to cover what they want. And so the 2010s were more about like when you step on a scale at the doctor where it has to find a balance, and then that's kind of where content ID is now. But I also suspect, and I just want to be honest with your viewers, that a lot of rights holders have probably whitelisted us, or at least, you know, leave us alone, or when content ID automatically triggers, and 99% of the claims we get are automatic. It's not a human that issues it. When we just politely explain our position, like that template is should go in the hall of fame of media, like, you know, they kind of let it go. They release, they retract, and I think most of them just whitelist us because they go, This is accurate, and you know, also I also, okay, today, full circle, if 20 years ago you told me this, I'd be like, Yeah, I don't think so. But a lot of these rights holders are our partners, they either license our content, like Hulu early on would license, and I remember telling their in-house counsel, I was like, I just want to be very clear, the content we're gonna send you might be like top 10 Simpsons episodes, and we're using Simpsons IP, which is like Fox IP, and then we're you're gonna license it. And they're like, Yeah, we get it, Ash. Like, we we do fair use as well. Like, you know, so I was like, okay, giddy up. But then ultimately, now today they also advertise with us. So most of these rights holders, the argument, if ever there was somebody who was just like, I hate watch module, they put Batman above Superman, let's go get them. Um, you know, I'd be like, well, you can't argue harm because the fair use argument, is it fair use or not, is like a stepping stone to then go determine if there's been any damages to the underlying IP. So if I could say, well, we're not doing any damages to your IP if you're advertising with us, that makes no sense. Uh, I'm not saying you could seek a summary judgment or motion to dismiss and not have the fair use trial, but a lawyer would be like, we're just wasting money because the prima fascia, at first glance, it is fair use. So today, I admit if your viewers are listening, and I give advice that's good for them. It doesn't change my life. There's a lot of channels that do what we do in different ways, better, slower, whatever. There's enough, there's enough food for all. Um, I go, the clip base specially is not where you should focus, especially with IP, especially with like pop culture, because the decade of pop culture, there will, it's cycles. Something will happen and it'll grow in 15 years, five years. But I go we're past peak TV. So I was like, the way that I did something seeing where the puck was headed, I'm like, where do you see that you are potentially either passionate, an expert, ultimately authentic? You do have to be authentic these days. And if you look at the Joe Rogans or if you look at the Miss Rachel, whether you watch them, like them, or dislike them, that's not my point. I'm just saying it's somebody that took years to do something, found a niche or niche, and they just did it, and then they became an expert. Right? So it's more like those are the tests. And I also think that if you're YouTube, you are now television, you're probably not your algorithm. They've never said this, but I'm just saying your algorithm's not gonna highlight clip-based movie countdowns, you know. But but they are gonna be looking for content forever because you need fresh content. So I would always tell entrepreneurs, storytellers, creators, like, skate to where the puck is headed to quote Wayne Gretzky. As a Canadian, I have to quote him, otherwise, I lose my passport. Um, and and I do think that a lot of channels, if you start it, content ID might just outright block you from uploading, let alone uploading, getting claimed, and doing that song and dance. So you're better off looking at new areas. And and the first thing I tell people is like, okay, that's a good idea. Now go take a few days, just search on YouTube. Is this really a white space, or is it a white space in your head? Not the Same thing. And yeah, and so and but that's also why, like for me, most of the ideas I get, they can't be derivative, dilutive versions of what we do. You really need to aim for the fence and do more. And there are unf or fortunately or unfortunately less and less big ideas, big opportunities that once you reach the size of a Watch Mojo, again, we're not Disney, but I realize on YouTube we are kind of an established friend. So that's the advice I would give. But it was a lot of just kind of like problem solving and patience. And frankly, most people I don't think would want to take on that burden and risk, you know, the hassle. You know, I used to wake up and every day worry that the channel could be down. You know, I would worry, I would, I would sometimes get into these like very respectful, but like back and forths with occasionally when somebody would be like, no, no, no. Um, and and I was like, Yeah, most people don't want to do this. I'm not saying everybody was acting in bad faith, but you know, I was like, I know what the law is. You're just abusing these tools. And you could tell them, like, who do you go report to? You could go tell YouTube this this company, this rights holder is abusing content ID, but I'm not saying they don't care, but they're like, well, it's a tool, it's the law, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me ask a question about um one of your bread and butters for the channel, which are like your listical stuff. Um, one of the things that uh kind of separates uh your channel from a lot of other channels is while you can do top 10 and top 20, and a lot of people have done that, yours tends to be evergreen, and that's a little bit harder than it sounds on paper. What's kind of your framework? Uh, how do you guys figure out what's going to work for more than just a week? Because uh that's where a lot of creators are stumbling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so first of all, I'll say that I am not at all uh like those people who will only look at analytics, will only do it if they make money. I am um I am always like, let's say there was a famous architect who died, and I was like, we should do top ten architects, because I view it as a library. Like, no joke, it sounds very like, oh, it's sanctimonious, but it's like a public service. I'm like, hey, it's like this was a very popular, successful architect. If we want to be the credible authority, let's do top 10 architects. Um, but we also realize that people will watch a top 10 architect, but not a biography of this gentleman. So that's a bit of, I do take feedback, but it's balanced. But yeah, I mean, some of it is that. Like as you get bigger, you are tempted to do um things that are more in the news, or now we call it trending, but you know, in the news. Um, but you have to put it in a context and facade that um, you know, you know will stand the test of time because things take time, videos are expensive. So, you know, this week or last week, I guess, there was the World Economic Forum in Davos. And we do more than, I mean, we started doing like history 20 years ago. Like we have videos like the rise of Hitler. So when somebody's like, stick to movies, I'm like. We're like, we cover the history of entertainment, even, but it's fine. Um, so we're like, okay, let's do this because each year there's this boondoggle, you know, in Davos. So we're like, let's cover it. So it's more like explaining it in a neutral way where we're not trashing it as you know, these bad globalists, but we're criticizing that argument, but it's not just like a hit piece, but we also explain why it's people go there because it's there's a lot of you know smart, fancy, schmancy people. Um, so so you do have to find a way that to make things evergreen. Um, but it's not that hard once you build your culture and once you kind of like, you know, it's like a me people always ask me certain things. Like a side note, like I am actually looking at bringing back Major League Baseball and the Montreal Expos to the city. Now, people are like shocked, they're like, What? Are you a billionaire? I'm like, I'm not a billionaire, bro. That's not what I'm saying. But I was like, it's a financial model, you know, sports teams are so expensive, it's not a billionaire actually signing a check, it's private equity funds, one anchor investor. But I know if you're on a plane and the plane's about to go down because the pilot is, you know, incapacitated and the guy next to you is a pilot, wouldn't you hope that he says, hey, I could land a plane? Wouldn't he or she be like, I could not kill everybody, let's do this. So what I'm getting at is like, you do have to always like go back to your skill set, what you do. And I from the beginning was like, okay, if something is happening, yeah, it's great to get on your soapbox and go preach to people. But I'm like, isn't it more interesting to kind of build something that stands the test of time and then people could go back to it years later? So it is in our DNA, right? I mean, that's the key of culture. When people say culture eats strategy for breakfast, again, it sounds like something out of a fortune cookie, but what does that mean? Well, it means like if COVID hits, your team can function because you built the culture, you know, you have the communication systems. Um, so it's it's it is hard, I would say, because it's tempting to just cover something today when like you're angry or passionate. Um, but for us, it becomes second nature. And I go like the opposite of me as a finance guy getting the model of a sports team. Whenever I hear like, you know, a quarterback is reading the defense, being like, what are they looking at? Okay, standing there, you know what I mean? But that's what they've done. They've looked, you know, their expertise is that. I wouldn't be able to put a nail in the wall, but yet I could build the model to bring a$2 billion sports team back to a city. It's kind of weird. So for us, it's just it's in our DNA because from day one, I was like, I want to build an evergreen library. Now, obviously, as you get bigger, you could cover things that are more timely, like the last season or episode of Game of Thrones, you know, but but it's not like, yo, man, right now we just watched this and we're gonna poop on it because we hated it. You kind of still take an approach of like beloved shows that disappointed fans. And so that stands the test of time. And what's interesting for us is things that do, it's not that they're not evergreen, but when there's new entries, well, we could just do a part two, or we could take a top 10 and make a top 20.

SPEAKER_01:

What about um I think a lot of people will learn from other people's mistakes? Did you guys do anything the last two years that you bet on something and it was like, man, that did not pan out at all? We need to like either pivot from it or learn from it. Do you have an example you could share with us that might be interesting?

SPEAKER_00:

How long you got, Travis? I got time, man. I love it. I mean, look, reality is my third book is called Uh An Entrepreneur's Manifesto, but the main title is The Tenure Overnight Success. So whenever you come across, you know, the acquired podcast, or you come across Joe Rogan, you're like, this guy overnight. No, it's not overnight. He's been doing this for a decade. The Washington Post finally wrote about it. You not your ass, but your sorry ass just found out about it now, and you think uh you could do it. It doesn't work like that. Right. So, yes, I mean, my lord, we've done a lot of stuff. You know, we've launched channels that did not necessarily grow, series.

SPEAKER_01:

Um talk about the channels. That's interesting. So when you launch a channel, what does the return on investment look like for you? Like, do you have a certain amount of time where you're like, we're gonna give it time? This is how much time it has. If it doesn't work, I'm gonna just abandon it and move on. What's what's your that's a great question?

SPEAKER_00:

So, I mean, the reality is YouTube, like a decade ago. I'm not sure this is true now, but a decade ago, they were like, yeah, the algorithm. And I don't overthink the algorithm, I think all algorithm is just audience. Like it's your thing. But I go, they were like, well, for the first six months, the algorithm has to kind of pick you up and then figure out what this is, and then it'll kind of do its thing. Um, and our challenge really is Watch Mojo was so or is so successful, but like over the years was so successful that I would tell my team, I'm like, you guys should have temper your expectations because nothing is gonna necessarily like in finance jargon, like have the same revenue or have the same multiples and margins. But I'm like, that was the right thing at the right time. We're lucky, let's not be like greedy and lack perspective. So when we launched Miss Mojo, for me, it was like, okay, imagine like you have an audience and your comment section is like a cafeteria. I'm like, okay, let's say I like Ozzy Osborne, Paul Oakenfold, you know, uh Wu Tang clan. I like that kind of stuff. I still like Taylor Swift, don't get me wrong. But like, I'm like, if tomorrow we do Taylor Swift, or if we do a one direction video, because we have 20% like female demo, not to be stereotypical, but there is there are genres that gravitate more towards one gender or another. I was like, the poor people who are gonna be watching this as Taylor fans, the Swifties, they're gonna get decimated by the Megadeth fans, you know, just to use cliches and stereotypes. So I had always had the idea of Miss Mojo, um, like in the business plan, not that I ever really had a business plan, but but it was only when I had a team member who was like, hey, why don't we do this? I was like, hold my beer. I took out like the proverbal business plan. I'm like, here you go. I was like, go read this. I'm always like, wait, let me share you on an old document, let me send you an email. And then she came back, she was like, This makes sense. And I was like, what should the name be? And I was fine if the name would have been again something very stereotypical, like lavender. You know, I was like, you tell me, but she was like, it should be Miss Mojo. I was like, love it, that was one of the options. I didn't think a guy should decide the name, kind of micro. But so we went with Miss Mojo. Now, Miss Mojo covered a lot of celebrity, kind of like our people, you know, in the time empire. So it's a trade-off. A lot of the views that would have gone on Watch Mojo and more because it had more subscribers if they were celebrity, were now shifting to Miss Mojo. So there is also a cannibalization, but I knew that long term there was this like, again, my priorities are like principles, purpose, you know, profit is like way down. Profit comes after all that. So I was like, look, I'm like, this is not gonna be good near term in any way. But I'm like, long term, if we could serve the, you know, and I kind of broke it down as like watch mojo is 60 to 80% male, uh, 20, 30, 40 percent female, depending on the video, let's say. And I was like, maybe 5, 10 LGBTQ. But I was like, if you were to launch Miss Mojo, then it would be probably 60, 70% female. You still get 10, 20, you know, men, but I go, you'll see the LGBT uh community will grow 20, 30%. And again, not saying I'm right, or things I'm definitely wrong, but that panned out. So it also allowed us, you know, and I'm not a panderer, but I like to make people happy. So I was like, it allowed us to serve the female demo a lot better, but also YouTube comments could be toxic in a community that would be more supportive. And the Miss Mojo is like Xana do. People are always like marketers, they're like, Yeah, thank you for sending us those links. Uh, also want to just say, like, your comments section are not toxic. Because the concern a lot of marketers have is that, like, less so now, but back in the day, when they would just embrace the web, it was like, well, we're worried about the comments. I'm like, that's kind of like the nature. It's like, you can't go to a football match in Buffalo and complain that it's gonna go, right? I'm like, that's kind of the experience. Um, but so now there's a lot of other stuff. Like, we launched uh Mojo Travels. Now, the truth is, Mojo Travels was in our strategic conversations, like with Meredith and with Time Inc. They were like, you know, what do you think of like taking time or fortune or sports illustrated and video flying them, so to speak? And I was like, I'm a pretty confident guy, but I would hate to take time and then you know offend the writers or the audience. And we would not necessarily just do lists because we were doing a lot of other stuff. But I was like, Do you have a brand that is kind of less sacred? And they're like, travel and leisure. I was like, okay. So I was like, let's do that's why it was called Mojo Travels and not like Escaper, which you are uh a brand I had secured, because it was just as a placeholder. Um, but Mojo Travels, I think there was a lot of vloggers, and I love that. I mean, when I travel, I do watch vlogger videos, which are more personal and experiences. Um, and then you had a lot of like professionally produced articles that try to be objective, and I did feel there was a bit of a void. Like again, in an NBA kind of boardroom discussion, it was you would have thought this would catch like wildfire. But in the end, I think I mean there was also the externality of something called COVID. So when the pandemic hit, we're like, okay, it's kind of asinine. Like it was a channel that was kind of going, you know, it hadn't really broken through. And then when the pandemic hit, that was like, okay, maybe it's a sign to just pause it. And we still are like, do we bring it back? If anybody wants to partner with me and us on Mojo Travels, you know, it's got a ton of potential. But so sometimes it's an externality. But other times, you know, things take time. Like Mojo Plays made a ton of sense. Where, like, if you do a top 10 list, imagine if you take the first entry and you do a deeper dive on Mojo Plays. But really, at that time that we launched it, the whole let's play phenomenon took off. And that's also zooming out on YouTube. There's always genres or types of content. You know, like Mr. Beast is the king of YouTube. That's a very specific, you know, I call what is it, like a competitive uh blackmail or extortion. He messes with you. He's like, you might win money, but you have to eat this pile of poop. You're like, what? Um but but my point is like before that, you had like obviously the let's play that PewDiePie, the previous king of YouTube. We we kind of were lucky and we caught the list uh format in a lightning in a bottle. Before that, you had a lot of do-it-yourself kind of content where people were building sheds and you know, whatever. Um, so I think that's really the way that creators have to look at it. It's like the the marriage between what you're good at, what you're passionate about, what you are an expert in, or could be an expert in, and our authentic with like a market opportunity. But it's also nobody likes to say content formula, but even the Wall Street Journal has a content formula, you know, every ESPN is a content formula. So you do need to find, in our case, it was lists, pop culture, clip-based on YouTube, not rocket science in hindsight. So, so it's a lot of balance finding the yourself with the the kind of entertainment landscape. And you also have to do content that you believe you could do, it's gotta be replicable, you know. Like I never cared about virality. I was never like, you know, in our marketing teammate was like in the press release, she used as a sound bite like you know, 20 years ago, chasing viral. And I said, to be honest, we never chased virals, we were looking for success. Um, but it wasn't like we were like viral moments because I was like, that's not a business, it's fun, it's a flash in the pen. But, you know, that ain't what's gonna create jobs, frankly. You know.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh when it comes to content strategies on YouTube specifically, how do you view the longer form listicles versus shorts? What do you because you know this is the thing amongst creators where they try to figure out, okay, how do we use shorts? Is it, do I make a shorts channel or is it an advertisement for my longer form stuff? How does Watch Mojo view shorts themselves in the overall kind of um structure of the channel?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so let's start with where it is today. I think today's shorts are great for discovery and marketing. Um I mean the math is not math. Like if the random number, if you're getting five or ten dollars CPM in a 10-minute video, I mean, you're gonna have to generate like 18 billion views to uh make the math work. So I think with shorts, even though it's a very elegant model where they're like, okay, if a user sits through 10 shorts and six of those videos are from Watch Mojo, Watch Mojo shall get 60% of the revenue generated. Okay, that kind of conceptually makes sense, but it's just it's not that. But we haven't given up on it. We just both take our back catalog and say, wait a minute, you have a top 10 list, each one could be an entry. So literally, if you do, you know, top 10 skyscrapers and you have like the Empire State Building, that one-minute video is quite compelling, you know. So but that becomes again, that's an easy lift. But I also empower the team to do things, and I kind of again, I'm a guy that takes negatives and turns them to positives. So I'm like, we on Watch Mo on YouTube, and especially we watch Mojo on YouTube, I go, our audience is used to a list. But on social and shorts in particular, we have creative freedom. If you guys want to do more of like a parody, go for it. If you want to do some kind of mashup that's a bit different that would not work on Watch Mojo's YouTube channel, I'm like, we could do it as a short. So again, it's a balance between let's leverage the back catalog, let's do something that is scalable enough and we could streamline to create all these individual clips that are topic-based, and then let's also have the creative freedom to use it as the art form and canvas to do something that we wish we could do on Watch Mojo, but would get pushed back. Um, but I do think that, and frankly, I give YouTube a lot of credit for willing to, you know, blow up their business. YouTube is a very paranoid organization, and that's actually a very complimentary statement. I remember YouTube once being like, because I used to write for TechCrunch Media Post about this racket. They were like, What do you think of Vessel? I'm like, the company that like is just an idea that doesn't have any content, that yes, wants to compete with you. But Jeff Bezos was an investor, so I understood why, you know, they were like worried. But but I was like, yeah, I don't think it's it's gonna necessarily be a threat to you. It's it's nothing right now. Um, and so when they saw TikTok's emergence, and also TikTok being backed by China, right? You know, ByteDance is the owner, but it's it's a it's a Chinese asset, so you're taking on China. Um, they kind of said, we're willing to scorch earth, blow up our business. We don't want to be a case study in the innovator's dilemma uh course. Um, but then they also found that balance because I could describe it as a bar, yeah, a barbell opportunity. So we call it now mids. Mids are like our 10-minute, 15-minute videos. We have shorts, leveraging the back catalog, doing original shorts. But we also are reimagining our editorial, both taking, let's say, an Aussie top 10, a Black Sabbath top 10, and now, oh, look, you have a 30-minute show. But we are also actually just pushing into just original, longer videos, whether it's a top 50 or just like a documentary style, you know, looking at the history of reality TV shows. And that's longer for fast and our and the biggest fast opportunity is on YouTube. YouTube's linear um offering is growing quite rapidly, and our content meshes really well with that, right? So that's also the balance. There's so many opportunities that you both have to lean in, listen, play it to your strengths, but you also have to kind of know when to retreat and say, yeah, this is probably not gonna be um, you know, we've also tried, you know, a lot of talk format, more personality driven. But the reality is our fans actually want the faceless Vio show with clips, because that's what they want, you know. And there's there's YouTube is huge. There's a lot of people that like the more traditional YouTube personality-driven personalities, you know. Um, but but there's a lot of them that are kind of like, no, no, no, we want, we don't want that. We know we can get that. Tell us about HBO shows, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, exactly. And you guys have like spread your brand across like Miss Mojo, Mojo Plays, uh, watch Mojo UK, like you have all these different brands. Um, so we kind of know the dominance on YouTube. I'm just curious, what other platforms really working for you guys right now? Is it like Instagram, TikTok? Like, what's the next biggest platform or the next one you're really excited about?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I'd like to start off with the first one where we really actually When we started on Facebook, we didn't really have the traction. Like Facebook now is a great promotional. We still are there. But and this is again not a knock at Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg does not care about you. Or he is more about Facebook, and as he should. So he was like, wait a minute, I got companies paying me for discovery. I got you know brands paying me. Why would I share revenue? You know, why would I do this? Whereas Google's DNA with search was always send out traffic to get bigger, share revenue through AdSense and AdWords to get more money. So I always knew that YouTube, once they bought it, would be a very, very good platform because again, culture matters, right? So I could understand where that company was going to go. Facebook from the beginning, when people were like, Why aren't you on Facebook? I was like, Facebook is not a good partner in that sense. They're a good partner for other things. But I was like, they're not going to be reliable. And not say I was right, but it was it was accurate, right? So we then got really excited about Snap. We were not in the first first wave, and they went for the shiny New York Times and Vice Media. Again, I don't have a sense of entitlement. I was like, even though we are quite good at this racket, I was like, I get it. They want to brag about the buzz fees on the vices. And then, okay. But then after those companies were all disappointed, because they wanted millions of dollars because they had a much bigger business. We were a multi-million dollar business. But for us, even if we were going to generate, for example,$100,000, I was like, that could be good because it's just diversification. So as part of that second wave, we ended up with like 20 channels. Again, we could experiment, we could draft off of our existing content. So Snap for a few years was really, really uh solid. Won't lie. Um then it kind of just through their own challenges of like, you know, there's a whole generation that grew up with Snap, but it depending on your age, it's not necessarily something that the youngest of kids, you know, it's it's a very like, it's a fascinating sociological case study in that sense. And then TikTok was a platform we we really kind of paid attention to. And again, I was like, I'm not on TikTok, so you trust people who are more native to it. And so today, Instagram and TikTok are really, really compelling complementary platforms, they're not commercial platforms, in my opinion, yet. Yeah, okay, if a sponsor, obviously, we get a ton of interest from sponsors, and we include our reach, which is substantial, but it's always anchored around YouTube. Um, but but I also tell people that there's no shame in just saying it's still a YouTube-centric business because YouTube is so dominant. So you know it's like if you're number one, if you're if you're crest, let's say, and you sell 80% of your toothpaste at Walmart, okay, it's not because Crest sucks, it's just because Walmart is dominant. Now you might be able to build a version, a fat Crest tube for Costco. Costco, you know, and and target, you maybe shrink it and you know, whatever. But I'm like, in that sense, I'm like, yeah, YouTube's been our favorite trading partner, and I've always been a big YouTube fan. I mean, I I joke I used to have hair like Fabio, so YouTube gave me a lot of stress and anxiety. Yeah. But without YouTube, I wouldn't be like in this position now to at least look at bringing back the expos, right? So I'm a very big kumbaya kind of guy in that sense. But but I also had to block out the haters and the critics out a lot. I mean, we we sold 25% of the business to a private equity fund, and they've been pretty good partners. But I always used to get a lot of heat from investors who would pass with their thesis, and they were like, well, it's too reliant on YouTube. Today, guess what everybody wants? More YouTube. Yeah. Today they're like, YouTube is television, it's the future of media. They're like, I always believed in you, buddy. I'm like, those emails when you're like, I don't think this is a business, pal.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, last question. I think this is just an interesting thought exercise. Um, let's just say that you are a content creator, brand new. Um, you don't have the resources of Watch Mojo right now, but you, Ash, want to create your own YouTube channel separate from the entity that you've built. You just want to do it for fun. What is your channel about and what is your strategy for the first like 60 days? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00:

Are you telling Ash?

SPEAKER_01:

You, Ash.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So well, I'll tell you this. Is actually so I launched a brand called Context as part of the watch module, like corporate. So, context, um, if you type, I think the URL handle is actually just context, or if you type context.tv, it'll take you to it. So, context was more the humanities, a lot of entrepreneurship. Like everything we're talking about. Like this video, if you guys allow me to, after you publish it, afterwards, I would love to feature it, part of it. That's what context was. I am an entrepreneur, I'm a storyteller, I love history, love you know, his uh psychology, sociology, and I mesh those two business with you know, the the kind of the what goes in between the ears to succeed. You need the heart, you need the passion. Like, think of it, think of business as the way an athlete would. So that's what I would do. And then again, just because of COVID, being a team player, I was like, I already felt bad taking any resources from Watch Mojo and Miss Mojo. So COVID, it kind of paused. And then in the last few years, I've been kind of adding stuff. But here's the fascinating part the kids, even if they're like 20, but like the fans who are into Batman and gaming in 2015, let's say they were 18 at the time, well, they are 30 now. So, as crazy as it is, they do care about Venezuela to be like, did America go and kidnap Maduro? Like, okay, he's a bad guy, but I want to know about that. We cover that now. And even if we want to do like top 10 greatest entrepreneurs of all time, you know, or we did a video like comparing no disrespect, this was a compliment, but like were the prophets the first entrepreneurs? You know, then you have kings. So, like different kinds of you know, topics that a decade ago would have been blasphemy to blasphemy literally in the religious sense, like talking to our fans. But I've always gone against the grain. Like, even YouTube would be like, oh no, no, you should stick to what you do. And today those videos do more than most of our uh do better views because I recognize that our fan base has changed. And again, if today somebody were, I'm this is not for me, but if you look at Elon Musk sending rockets into space, you could imagine that the space vertical is gonna grow in popularity, hint in. So if somebody were to do that, that should probably be where the puck is headed. You might be ahead of the wave that we caught. Um, but that's not my personal domain expertise. So I think context would be that. But it's just in an ironic way, we're now doing those topics on Watch Mojo. But again, the the more hardcore entrepreneur stuff, we keep on context, let's say.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. Well, Ash, it's been an incredible amount of information that we you've shared with us. I greatly appreciate it. For anyone who's watching on YouTube course, I don't even have to tell you the links are in the description because you already know who Watch Mojo is. If you're listening to the audio podcast, there will be links in the show notes, just in case you forget. And on your way home, you're like, wait a minute, I need to go watch this. We'll put all the links in the show notes there. Um, but we thank you so much for your time. I know you're a busy guy, so I'm gonna let you get back to the business at hand. And we're super excited to see the next 20 years of Watch Mojo uh on YouTube and everywhere else, Facebook, uh whatever the next social media thing that comes out is as well. So thank you so much for your time, Ash. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Once again, you can hit the uh link in this in the description and in the show notes to check out Watch Mojo. We'll see y'all in the next one.