Jo Franco on the moment you realize you can’t go on living off of sponsorships:
Jo:
…and in addition to that, we’d have these one-off deals — brand sponsorships — and I started seeing that it was exhausting.
So, this was really a problem. You would get boatloads of money, but then you’d get nothing.
Nathan:
Oh. The— like, the ebb and flow, like it would spike and then—
Jo:
You would get like 60k here, and then maybe nothing for 3 months. And then maybe you’d get 20K, and then like nothing for a month.
And then this, like, scarcity grew inside of me where you don’t know if you can turn down the brand deal. And that was not something I wanted to to live off of, which is when I started talking to my business partner, like,
‘Hey, how can we create a business bigger than us that has a different element of monetization so that, even when we’re not traveling, if we don’t want to accept sponsors there’s still a business that’s growing?’
So, we launched this travel platform called ShutUpandGo dot travel, and then I, like, brokered affiliate flights — you could buy flights — and then it became this whole thing.
So, this is when I started dipping my toes into, like,
‘What does this look like as a business that can scale without me?’
— end of vid clip: @ minute 14:43
As a creator, that last question is the one you should never stop asking yourself.
— Tang
Nathan Barry’s owned platforms include: Kit and NathanBarry.com.
Jo Franco’s owned platforms include: Jo Club and JoFranco.world.
