SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 91: Do you make alot of money producing reality shows?
23 Oct 2015
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of this podcast episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark.
And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Coming up tomorrow, you're going to hear from Jonathan Goodman, who did 300 grand in nine days from a small Icelandic hut. Good morning to you, top tribe. Rise and shine. Get those jogging pants on. You're stuck in your commute. Thank the Lord you've got the top. You guys are going to love our guest today. His name is Brian Brushwood.
And Brian is the creator and host of over 400 episodes of Discovery's Scam Storylines. He's got over 1 million subscribers on YouTube. In 2015, his full season of Hacking the System debuted on the National Geographic channel. He has performed thousands of live stage shows appearing in every state in the continental US.
He's also headlined three years at Universal Orlando and recorded two, count that, two Billboard number one comedy albums with his Night Attack co-host Justin Young. In addition, he's made dozens of TV appearances, including twice on The Tonight Show with Mr. Fallon, and also co-hosts the independent podcasts Night Attack, Weird Things, and Chord Killers.
Brian, are you ready to take us to the top? Heck yes. That was a mouthful. Let me tell you, you have a lot of success, huh?
I mean, I guess it's funny because people ask, you know, what I do for a living. And 10 years ago, the answer was very, very simple. I quit my day job because I wanted to tour with a live blood and guts punk rock magic show.
And over the course of three or four years, I put together this 90 minute show with fire eating escapes, mind reading, break 30 pound bricks over my head and stick nails in my eyes. And I found a real match with the college market where I would tour 150 to 200 days on the road. And once that got to be
I don't want to call it a grind, but once it seemed under control, it's like, okay, well now what? And so I sort of added a little skeptical stage lecture to my repertoire. And then I started doing stuff online. And then I was a guy who toured with a magic show, but also dabbled in the internet. And then at some point I was clearly spending more time on the internet than I was on the road.
And then all of a sudden TV comes calling and the comedy albums start happening. So, so I guess at this point I would say I, my career has a highly diversified portfolio.
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Chapter 2: How did Brian Brushwood transition from live performances to online content?
Daniel Kahneman did an experiment where he spun a wheel of fortune. It was just the number 0 to 100. And he says, oh, look, the number 87 came up. Unrelatedly, how many countries in Africa do you think are members of the United Nations? And they found that if a higher number came up, then people would estimate that number as higher.
If a lower number came up, they would estimate that number as lower, even though they knew logically that there could be no connection between the random spin of a wheel of fortune and how many countries were in the U.S.
So why don't you ask for a million dollars per performance?
And then there is that kind of, there's also fairness exercises. There's a bunch of work, psychologists do something they call the ultimatum game, where one party says, you're given $10, you could give as much or as little as you want to the other party, but the other party has to approve the deal.
Now, logically, the other party, whether they get one cent, one dollar, or 50%, they should approve it because getting something's better than nothing. However, there's this inherent sense of fairness, and people would rather torpedo the deal than know that somebody else got the better of them.
Interesting. That's really, really interesting. So just real quick, you mentioned a bunch of different revenue streams. As of back in August, what's making you the most money right now? Is it producing the shows? Is it the podcast revenue? What is it?
Strangely, it's the online store. As far as revenue, now keep in mind profits and revenues are not the same.
Sure, yep. The online store. So I'm on the online store. So the things you're focused on selling are what?
Well, everything from, there's sort of three tiers. There's stuff for the high-end magic enthusiast, you know, mark decks of cards, that kind of thing. We've got kind of underhanded sneaky stuff, like a lockpick training set that basically, the problem is most people at some point want to get into lockpicking. They just get a lockpick set and then they figure out it's hard and then they give up.
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Chapter 3: What revenue streams does Brian Brushwood utilize in his career?
None of those agreements have been exclusive. Whenever possible, there have been times that I've signed agreements for exclusivity. And the moment you do that, that's when the phone starts ringing off the hook and you just start looking at the calendar while waiting for that exclusivity to run out.
It's the worst. Yeah, it's the worst. Well, very good. Well, Brian, you are all over the place and I love it. You have so many different things you're doing. I'm going to link to all of them in the show notes at NathanLatka.com forward slash the top nine one. Again, that's forward slash the top nine one. OK, Top Tribe, I want to give you more brain juice this month. Totally free.
If you're loving this episode, text the word Nathan. N-A-T-H-A-N to 33444 for your chance to win a prize on an upcoming show. The next prize is a pack of 14 business books valued at 250 bucks if you bought them on Amazon. And these books are the ones that Mark Zuckerberg thinks every entrepreneur must read. Okay, Brian, it is time for my favorite part of the show. Do you know what's next?
I don't, but I'm excited. It's time for the Famous Five. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. All right. Number one, Brian, what is your favorite business book?
Oh, that's easy. Origin of Brands by Al and Laura Reese. Al and Laura Reese through the 80s and 90s have been given the same marketing advice about positioning and finding your place in the marketplace. My favorite of their books is... is origin of brands in which they couch everything based on Darwin's origin of the species.
And they make an argument, just like Darwin proposed a tree of life where you have mammals and insects and algae, there's a tree of brands where you have restaurants and car dealerships and cable television providers. And within those, there are other branches. There are branches for fast food and healthy fast food and cheap fast food. And if you can find an unfilled niche...
And you can obey the same rules that govern life. For example, the tree that gets planted first is going to steal all the sunshine from the tree that gets planted second. Then you can find an unfilled niche and become top in your category.
I love that. And we've got production team here in studio. Sam is shaking his head. You've read that book. You like it. You can talk. It's OK.
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How does Brian's experience in live performances influence his pricing strategies?
Number three, Brian, do you have a favorite online tool like Evernote? Absolutely. Slack, Slack, Slack. Tell me you've heard the good word. We are on it, baby.
Loving it. Yeah. The thing about Slack that's so powerful is that you don't, I did not want to sign up with it. All my editors and all of the people I work with just spontaneously started using it. And they're like, by the way, you know, you're dumb for not using Slack. I was like, all right, fine. I installed the app and I'm on there all the time now.
It's everything you love about Twitter and chat rooms, but easier.
All together. There you go. You guys just learned that Brian hangs out in chat rooms, FYI. Okay, number four, Brian. I want to know if you're doing all the stuff that you're doing in a balanced way. Yes or no? Do you get eight hours of sleep every night?
Not all in a row. Weirdly, you know, oftentimes I don't get to bed until close to two. And part of the fact of having three daughters means whether I want to or not, I oftentimes get up around 630 or so. But, you know, I'll check a few emails and then take a little quick nap. And then the day starts in earnest around 11 and then goes till two again.
So you said five daughters. Last question. Are you married? Well, three daughters.
Yeah. And yes, definitely happily married. I got married straight out of college. We're coming up on what, 18 years now? Wow.
So how old are you now? I've just turned 40. Okay. So take us back 20 years or maybe you're talking to your daughters. Maybe you have a daughter around 18 or 19. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be?
The greatest ability anyone can have is the ability to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
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