Ivan Hidalgo talking with Jeremy Mary:
Jeremy:
I feel like with this podcast, specifically, I interview a lot of these types. I just interviewed Angus, who’s behind Ali Abdaal …interviewed Caleb, behind like, Hermozi but like, I feel like this is like, a new position that’s like, solidifying as like, very necessary and that’s understaffed.
Like, not a lot of people have the skills to do that, and a lot of channels are looking for these people — these right-hand operators — right? Why do you think that is?
Ivan:
The industry’s maturing. I think creators are now noticing that they’re making a good amount of money. They also understand the opportunity, and they’re like, ‘Whoah, this isn’t just me creating a video. I can sell something on the back end here, and for that, let’s build a team.
‘But then, I also have to create cool stuff. But then I have to operate this team, and I’ve never operated a team before.
‘Like, what’s a team? How do you even hire people? What’s an SOP? What’s a KPI?’
But they’re like fun, creator people.
So, I see a lot of very awesome, like, pretty cool creators that don’t know how to run a business, because they’ve never done it before.
And so then, when someone steps in as an operator, it can radically change the business, and make a lot of money. And, hopefully, save the original creator their most important asset, which is their time, and their headspace to do what they do best, which is create.
Any creator bright enough to consistently entertain hundreds of thousands, to millions of viewers — not to mention, navigate a terrain of trolls, scary stans, and tricky algorithms — is likely also intelligent enough to figure out how to build out and run a great creator-driven business (an owned platform, as we call it around here).
But the problem, as Ivan points out, is time.
Even the weirdest of creators who love the operational side of things eventually find they need a Number 2 to help manage it all.
I predict that in 2 years time, having a COO or general manager running your owned platform will be as commonplace as is having a vid editor today.
— Tang
