How I Built This with Guy Raz - Dude Perfect: Cory Cotton and Tyler Toney

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

As Texas A&M students in the mid 2000's, Cory Cotton, Tyler Toney and their housemates spent countless hours playing hockey in the living room and attempting trick shots in the backyard. A spontaneous bet over a sandwich led the guys to make a video montage of outrageous basketball shots, which they titled Dude Perfect and posted on a new site called YouTube. After that first video wound up on Good Morning America, the five Dudes challenged themselves to even more outrageous stunts: an impossible shot from the third tier of a stadium, a here-goes-nothing lob from the door of a flying plane. But despite their growing popularity, the group spent five grueling years trying to build ad revenue and brand deals while juggling day jobs and commuting weekly across Texas. In 2014, they finally committed fulltime to building Dude Perfect into a robust entertainment platform, which today includes books, TV, live events, and a YouTube channel that has more subscribers than the NBA, NFL, and NHL combined. Take the listener survey at: http://npr.org/builtsurvey See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.ca. Hey, everyone, a quick thing before we start the show. How I built this is doing its annual survey to better understand our listeners and how you use podcasts. So please, please, please help us out by completing a short anonymous survey at npr.org.

slash built survey. That's all one word, npr.org slash built survey. We'd really appreciate your feedback. We really do need it. So again, npr.org slash built survey. And thanks. We are coming around. I'm like, this is the airplane shot. This is the first one we ever take. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, this is going to be, like, I have no control over where this goes. I've never, I've never dropped a ball out of a plane. Like, who knows? And it was kind of starting to rain. I remember when I put my hands out the window, I was like, oh gosh, that kind of hurts because the rain was like spitting behind the propeller and it just felt like a bunch of needles going into my hands. So I dropped the ball out of the side of the plane and...

From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz and on the show today how a bunch of college friends turn their backyard basketball rivalry into a viral video and then a viral entertainment franchise. Dude Perfect, one of the most popular channels ever put on YouTube. You might be surprised to discover that I don't spend much time on YouTube. Okay, of course you knew that. I'm an early middle-aged dad with a busy life. So the fact that I even know the names Mr. Beast or PewDiePie or the Paul brothers has everything to do with having two boys who are approaching their teenage years.

And among all the clips they'll show me, I've been consistently entertained by a group of five guys who perform outrageous athletic stunts and go by the name Dude Perfect. So when we decided to interview them for this episode of the show, I had to give up my mic for a few minutes to some wild-eyed fans who were hanging around the studio, my children.

All right, there was a soda can, and the card was done it split the soda can in half. How did he do that? Yeah, so, like, he has a couple different types of cards, and one of the kinds that he has is metal. And so that one he had to stand. This last voice is Corey Cotton. You'll hear more from him in a moment.

What you need to know for now is that these five guys who call themselves Dude Perfect are among the most popular entertainers in America among three to 14-year-old boys and girls, which is why my kids insisted on asking us. asking questions of their own. When you scored that world record in Oklahoma, when you shot the ball like 220 feet and you made it in the hoop, when you went to sleep at night, what were you feeling? What was I feeling after I made the shot?

What Duke Perfect produces are stunningly complex tricks. A basketball hurled from an airplane into a hoop far below. A hole in one golf shot off a multi-story roof into the hole a thousand feet away. a bowling ball being hurled from a moving car at dozens of pins for a perfect strike. And none of it is faked. It's all real. It might just take 100 or even a thousand tries before it works. Sometimes one shot for a single video can take two weeks. As of this recording, Dude Perfect has nearly 57 million subscribers to its YouTube channel. The guys are among the biggest YouTubers.

in the world, and hits a big business. With tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue, a massive live show that sells out stadiums and arenas, television deals, and even a few food products and partnerships with big brands. But of course, like any great business story, the rise of Dude Perfect as a powerhouse brand was a slow burn, more than a decade in the making. For years, they drive halfway across Texas every weekend to shoot videos and then pull all-nighters to edit them, and this was long before YouTube became a way to make decent money. But one of the things that's made Dude Perfect so popular is that they're actually nice guys.

They're not mean. They don't get into beefs or boxing matches with other YouTubers. They don't swear. And their videos, despite what I said above, actually look effortless. But as I say, and as you will hear, that effortlessness takes a hell of a lot of effort. Dude Perfect is based in Frisco, Texas, not far from Dallas, and just a few hundred miles from where they all met at college. The five dudes are Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert, two brothers, Corey and Kobe Cotton, and Tyler Tony.

And there was no way I could speak to all five of them in one sitting, but I did speak to two. Tyler and Corey, whose twin brother Kobe is also in Dude Perfect. Our parents love them to death, but they decided to confuse the whole world. We had solid, real first names. I'm William Cotton, and he's John Cotton, and they decided to go with the tricky middle names for what we were actually going to be called, and that's Corey and Kobe. Just one letter apart. What I'm wondering, yeah, I was like, wow, your parents called your brother Kobe and called you Corey,

and your identical twins, but that's actually your middle names. Correct. They set us up for a little bit of a confusing life, I think, but it's okay. We like it. And you guys were preachers kids, right? Like your dad was a pastor kind of in and around the Houston area? That's right. So we definitely grew up playing tag in churches and got my finger jammed in a door that Kobe slammed on me as we're playing tag. And we always felt like everyone was looking at us, right? I mean, we're just the pastor's kid. So you're there. Everyone knows us. We don't necessarily know them. But, you know, you've got all these people 50 years older than you walking up to you and rubbing your head and, oh, man, you're getting so much bigger and it's all that kind of thing. Yeah. And did you, was that okay? Were you okay with that?

Honestly, it was really fun. I know people have different kind of opinions of what it's like to be a pastor's kid. I feel like usually it goes either really well or really poorly, but ours was on the good side for sure. And Tyler, from what I understand, you grew up in Prosper, Texas or just outside. And I, from what I understand, your dad was also involved in the, in the faith community. He was, like, kind of well known, I guess, because he sang in a, in the Southern gospel music group, that your grandfather was also involved with. Is that right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I remember vividly going back when I was four or five, six years old. My dad and my uncles and cousin and grandpa, they'd all be at the house gathered around just the biggest speaker in the house, you know, singing like four inches from each other's ears, trying to. nail their parts. And I remember laying in bed at like 10, 11 p.m. at night and just hearing them blast that music downstairs. And for the older generation, and a lot of those Southern Baptist churches, they were celebrities, I guess you could say. And then your dad went and worked for a software company. Yep. Yep. Went to basically software companies. He was at Netscape when they were kind of the original internet explorer browser. And my mom stayed at home with us with me and my sister. And she was a stay-at-home mom. As a kid, were you good athlete from an early age? I say that I was an

above-average athlete. My dad always, he was always telling me, you know, teaching me about mental toughness and hustle and how that can overcome a lack of talent in a lot of areas. And so I played everything. I mean, I played a lot of hockey, played football, basketball, baseball, track, golf. And I would venture to guess that if you were to pull, people in Texas about their faith that high school football would rank pretty high up there. I think so. It's really important, right? It's like a really big deal in Texas, especially in small towns where they don't have professional teams.

And Tyler, you play, like, you weren't just on the high school football team. You were the quarterback, right? That's a big job. Yeah. It was all about Friday Night Lights football. I mean, all the shows are pretty accurate as far as that goes. Literally the whole town would come out and watch those football. games and stores would close down and things would get moved. Other school activities would get

postponed. So it's just a little different feel than it is now with how many people are living in this area. I mean, how do you, I'm just curious as a 17, 18 year old kid, that's a lot of pressure to be the quarterback. Everyone knows you. They're all coming to the games. How do you deal with that? I never really felt pressure being the quarterback. I would get nervous before the games, But, I mean, as soon as you took that first snap, you forget about all that other stuff. Like, I just, I love competing. I loved taking my guys out against your guys and see who comes out on top. At least for me, I didn't think about the people in the stands or anything like that.

I just focused on my guys and having fun. And I mean, those, looking back, those were by far, Friday nights playing football were by far my favorite memories. Wow. Corey, you were also a high school athlete, but I've seen you and I've seen you evolve over the years. and you are a much slimmer man than Tyler is. So I have to imagine you did not play high school football. No, there was no high school football in my career that is accurate. I was a basketball guy.

I will say that my brother and I were, I mean, we were like your typical, obsessed, short basketball kid. I mean, if you went and looked at my whole childhood, I had, what was the NBA's old slogan? I love this game. My mom painted, I love this game. in the whole basketball NBA font on our wall. And it's so funny looking back now, especially now that I have young kids, because I genuinely thought that I was going to the NBA. I mean, if you asked me, fourth grade, seventh grade, 11th grade, I probably no joke would have told you at an absolute minimum. I was going to play college basketball. And I, I mean, I was not kidding,

the type of playing time even in early high school that it takes in order to get there. And it's just so funny looking back, but I just loved it so much. Yeah. All right. So, Both of you did not grow up knowing each other, but both of you would end up going to Texas A&M and college station. Corey, what was your kind of thinking? I mean, you were 18 and ready to go to college? Were you thinking, yeah, maybe I'll do what my dad does and be like a spiritual leader? Or did you have other thoughts in your mind? That was definitely at least a leading candidate in my mind.

So my brother and I went to school together. We pretty much did everything together. I mean, I'm sure that some twins go the opposite direction. but we enjoyed, you know, hanging out together and stuff. So that was never really a question of if we were going to go to the same college or not. So we went together. We both worked at the Apple store seasonally, off and on in high school and college. And so I'd say there are two kind of top career paths for both of us,

where we're either going to go into some sort of sports ministry because we both loved basketball so much, or we were going to work, try to, corporately at Apple. And that's why we chose to be communication majors, speechcom majors at Texas A&M. How'd you do a school? I mean, were you a good student? honestly I was a good student Kobe always squeaked me out slightly

when we graduated college he squeaked into summa cum laude and I was nothing right I was just right below that tour they don't say anything so alphabetically his name comes right before me and so you know in front of 30,000 people this is A&M huge stadium Kobe walks across

and it takes them a long time to kind of say his whole John Kobe Cotton Summa cum laude and everyone claps and it's William Corey Cotton It was just as short, nothing after it. And so it's these little moments that I think about. But we enjoyed competing. And honestly, it's been a fun dynamic.

So you were a good student. You worked hard. And what about you, Ty, were you, I know when you went on to Texas A&M, I didn't even know this is a major. I didn't even make a major. I mean, Texas A&M was founded as an agricultural school, but I didn't know you could major in hunting and fishery. That was your focus. Is that what you thought you would do something in like commercial fishing or, right? ranching? Like, what did you think you were going to do? Yeah, so it was wildlife and fisheries.

Hunting and fishing would have been an even better major, but that one wasn't offered, unfortunately. But no, so I started off. I was going to go be a dentist. My uncle, my dad's oldest brother is a dentist. And I was like, man, that'll be cool. I'll go do that and started on that path and got to a little class called organic chemistry and decided like, yeah, maybe I should go do something else that You know, I enjoy a little bit more. And then I figured out, okay, well, there's a duck identification lab that's part of this wildlife and fisheries major. And I was like, man, I'm all in on that. And it was a whole lot less math and English classes and a whole lot more wildlife and ecosystems.

And I didn't really know what I was going to go do with that. I kind of thought maybe like Game Warden or something along those lines or ranch management or something like that. but I just knew that I enjoyed that a lot more than being a dentist. Ty, why don't you rip off some duck names for us? You got all kinds of duck names. Gadwal, Mallard, Pintail, Cinnamon Teal, Blue Wing Teal, Green Wing Teal, Widgens. The Duck Lab was a nice. That was one of those where I didn't have to do a lot of studying beforehand.

Because you knew the DECA. I was like, man, this is the easiest class of ever taking them alive. All right, so fall of 2006, Corey, you and your brother show up at College Station, and you, I guess you find a place to live together, right, in like an off-campus house. And you're just, you know, your regular students there. And tell me a little about how you started to meet, because this is, you didn't meet Tyler right away. I think first you met two other guys who would eventually become part of Dude Perfect. How did you meet those guys?

That's right. So we, Tyler is a year younger than the rest of us. So you're correct. We met him the following year actually through Garrett, which we'll get to. but my brother and I show up on campus, and we actually went to, I mean, let's call it what it is, right? There's this thing called Fish Camp at A&M, and it's essentially an awesome brainwashing camp to help people that don't know all the traditions about Texas A&M. And then there's kind of a similar one that's a little more Christian-oriented called Impact Camp. And we all went to both of them, but at the Christian one, we happened to meet each other.

And so my brother and I met Garrett, and we also met a guy named Sean, and we all kind of hit it off real quick. And so we'd kind of grouped up very quickly that freshman year. So you meet Garrett, and he's just a cool guy that you kind of start hanging out with. You guys have a lot in common. I think we just connected on a fun friendship level first, but we all had the same hobbies. His main sport, for sure, was basketball as well. So we pretty quickly formed an intramural team, and we hadn't met Cody yet. We ended up meeting him through playing basketball up at the rec center in our illustrious

intermural career. And we also had a Bible study that we were all a part of together. So those two things really kind of kept us connected outside of when we were at school. Talk to me a little about that, because there's a discipline in going to that every week or more than once a week. Was that connected to just the way you were raised? Or was it part of a discipline like getting up and exercising every day? I mean, tell me about why you guys would go to Bible study every week. It's a good question.

I think a combination of both, right? It was a little bit how we were raised. I think all of us had a really good experience growing up, I say in the church, but really I just mean with our faith. And because of that, we met people that felt the same way and there's just a bond there. It doesn't mean that we weren't really good friends with other people that didn't necessarily believe the same things as us. But I think we grew up and experienced what it was like to have really close, strong friendships with guys that could back you up and had your back and things like that. So then when we moved and we were all on our own, that's something we were looking

for. We were looking to replicate some of the friendships and kind of brotherhood that we had in high school and growing up in our own separate lives. And that's how essentially we met these guys combined that with basketball. Yeah. Tyler, you come to Texas A&M the following year in the fall of 2007. How did you meet these guys? How did you even come into contact with them? Because Texas A&M is a city. It's massive. So Garrett and I went to high school together. Got it. And Garrett was already hanging out with those guys. Yeah, so he went down to A&M, and then when I got down there, he introduced me to the twins and Cody. And the first time I went with Gary, he was like, hey, let's go to these guys's house.

I want you to meet them. There's some cool guys. They're super cool guys. Yeah, super cool guys. I walk into their house, and they have the soldier boy dance up on their projector, and they're, like, learning the dance moves to Soldier Boy. Like that Soldier Boy. Yeah, they were cranking that soldier boy as I walked in the door.

And I was like, I don't know. I don't know about these guys. Maybe going to do something else tonight. But no, it was, that was my first introduction to them, and they got a little bit cooler after that. And they were like kind of sports guys. Like they were into sports and playing sports. And I think you also joined the Bible study group, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think any time that you share, especially a faith, but then also interests with, with other people that are like-minded, that's a very natural progression of friendship and allows for a much deeper friendship and obviously beyond. So I think it's been cool to see that progress over the last, I mean, gosh, like 14 years now, something like that. You know, in a place like Texas A&M, there's going to be, and I'm totally projecting. I don't know, I've never been there, but I think because it's a big school, like any big school, there's going

to be all kinds of different activities and different scenes. But a, I'm a, I'm not a big school. I'm presumably a huge fraternity scene, probably a really big party scene. Did you guys avoid that because of your, because of your interest in sports and faith? Like did you, I don't know, were you guys drinking and doing, like, I mean, I'm not, no judgment. I'm just curious. Like, were you doing beer bond games and stuff like that in college? No, I think the, the answer to the question is not really. When we were in college, kind of one of the things that we wanted to show people is that you didn't necessarily have to go to parties and get wasted and drink a lot of alcohol to have fun and enjoy yourself in college. And personally, I had another outlet. My family ranch that I grew up on that was only

about an hour and a half from College Station. And honestly, I skipped a lot of weekends in College Station to go hang out with my grandma and my grandpa down there at our ranch. We didn't really feel like we were missing out, right? I mean, I think, yes, It was the five of us, but we also had a lot of other friends that would come, and our house was a huge hangout. And, you know, it probably looked like we were having just a massive party sometimes because, you know, the place would come every once in a while because we had a lot of cars in front of our street. But people would just come and hang out. And we just had, you know, fun, sports, you know, goofy games going on at our house. And there were just a lot of people that were hanging around.

So from what I understand, Tyler, your sophomore year, you move in with those guys. and Cody was also living with you or not at that point? I believe so. My sophomore year, their junior year. Yeah, that's right. Cody, Kobe, Corey and me all lived in a house together. And Garrett, who would become also part. He did not live with you.

He lived like down the street. Yeah, he couldn't live with us. He was too clean. Our dishwasher and sink was too messy for him. So, all right, so this is your kind of group house. You all were students, so you had to study. and but you also take me inside that house. Were you playing video games all the time?

What are you doing in there? There was a few video games. There was a lot of made-up games. Hustleball. Yeah, I mean, we had like these really ugly doors. This house was, I don't even know when it was built. It was probably built in the 70s. It had like these very like Star Trek shaped doors

that were just like very rounded. And one of them was kind of a cross from the kitchen opening and we just ended up turning them into like hockey goals. And so we would just stuff. up pillows in, you know, pants and shirts for the goalies and play hockey in the living room. We had a mini hoop in the living room that we played basketball, made up a bunch of games outside. I mean, we were just always competing. We were always creating ways to have fun, and we were never short on ideas, I guess, for things to do. So you guys were like

big boys, basically. Still are. And this is not, again, this is not a judgment. This is like, Because I think about my boys, from a very early age, you would like take socks and roll them up and play hockey in our living room or baseball. Like they would just throw a stuffed sock at the other one with a plastic bat. And my wife would be like, what are you guys doing? And eventually we just, we all understood. That's just what they were doing. But you guys were like 19, 20 years old and you were doing this at your college group house.

Now 31 and still doing it. I mean, you would do things like you'd have. Two of you just sitting on a sofa and one person would throw a football in between and like whoever caught it would like try to wrestle it away from the other person. I mean, right? Like you were like doing that kind of stuff. Yep, that was hustle ball. Great game. I think that one may have cost us to TV at one point and I think a hole in the drywall.

You guys were not hanging out in the quad like reading philosophy at school. No, I had to ask my sister where the library was my senior year when she was a freshman, unfortunately, when I was forced to study for a, class that I really needed to pass to graduate. So that was a humbling moment, too. All right. So as the story goes that I've read, at a certain point in this house, you decide, let's buy a basketball hoop. Like one of those hoops that is a standalone basketball hoop, right, that you like put

sand or water in the bottom to weigh it down. Yep. It was a plastic backboard basketball goal from Academy. Like Garrett and I went and bought, and we didn't really have a great driveway or any concrete to play basketball on. So we just stuck it in the backyard. And we would make up shooting games or just have free throw competitions. And we were getting ready to go to lunch one day. And I went to the corner of the yard. And I was like, okay, if I make this, you're buying my lunch. And he's like, okay, whatever. That's right. Ty is pretty known, at least back in the day,

for creating what we all call one-sided bets. So for example, I walk into the backyard one day, college house. And Ty has a knife in his pocket. Right. grew up on a ranch. Always has a knife with him and he said hey i bet i can throw this knife and stick it in that tree all the way across the backyard you know 30 yards and if i do you owe me 10 bucks well there's no if i don't i owe you 10 bucks it's just one-sided and so you know classic me i'm like sure whatever and he does it sticks in the tree so it was that situation just basketball version that kind of started everything ties in the backyard and he looks at garrett and he says hey if i make this shot you owe me a jimmy john sandwich and he's kind of standing in the corner and tosses up a hook shot, Swish O'Drae now.

So they go to lunch and they get back and a camera gets involved and we start filming everything. But how does it? So I understand you got the hoop, right? But first of all, what kind of cat, like was it an iPhone camera? Was it like a video camera? And who decided to start filming those shots that day? It was a picture camera on video mode and I cannot say that more clearly. We are talking.

It was like a little compact digital camera. One of the ones where you turn it on and the middle lens goes and kind of pokes out towards the front. I mean, very small. And to be honest, we've never really been able to remember who exactly busted out the camera. I think my gut is that Ty made that first shot and Garrett had to buy him lunch and we wanted to show the other guys when they got back. And it was kind of a keep everyone honest, make sure they pay their bets and also show the guys because it was a funny story. And you just held the camera and would like start filming Tyler or each other or what? It started with recreating that shot with Tyler and Garrett.

So Tyler goes in the corner, does his hook shot. And I think the dynamic shifted when we saw it on camera. I know that's silly to say. But when we are looking through, you know, playing it back on the camera. It just has a different vibe, right? And especially when you've never done this kind of thing before, it just looks fun to try and do again. And so it started with that shot for Ty

But then someone else said hey I want a shot and someone goes you know across the fence and throws it Or one of the guys climbed on the roof you know or someone does a bounce shot off the chimney and we were just having fun in our backyard I guess eventually like what you you had a friend of yours Sean actually like do a proper film of like like really actually try to make cool films of this No so Sean was so originally DP had six members so Sean was one of the other guys that lived with us at the house. And me and him were in the backyard originally when we decided like, hey, we need like a beginning to this video of these trick shots. And so we had two chairs set up like lawn chairs in the backyard that were sitting in the middle of the yard.

He put the camera on the railing because obviously we didn't have a cameraman or anything like that. And when he set it up, he went around and looked, you know, on the backside of the camera on the little viewfinder. And he said, oh, dude, perfect. It's already in frame. Like, everything's good to go. Like, it's centered up. Nice. And so we went around, and it was already recording at that point.

So he came around and sat down next to me, and we recorded a terrible intro where we named it, like, Backyard Stunt Man. And when we went back and listened to the original audio, we just thought it was funny the way that he said, dude perfect. And so we ended up, like, I guess, kind of adopting that as the title of the video. It says, dude perfect. Yep. And that original dude perfect audio is still in all the videos.

All right. So April 8, 2009, you guys recorded a video which you decide to upload to YouTube. And this is still like pretty early YouTube days. It's like two and a half, three years into YouTube. Yeah, very early. First of all, what was the, what did the video show? Describe the video. So we basically put together a video of us doing the shots in the backyard, right? Picture, you know, music and us doing different shots with, you know, the occasional celebrating. in between. Except that's really all it was. Don't picture the space jam music as the soundtrack because that was the original one and we had our first lesson in music

copyright issues. You use the space jam music because you're like, yeah, of course. But you obviously were college students and bozo, so you didn't know that you can't do that. Exactly. So I was the only one with a YouTube channel at the time. I was also the only one that knew anything about video editing. I had taken one class in high school

and so I bust open i. I movie on my Apple laptop. Yep. And put the footage in, throw, obviously one of my favorite songs at the time, Space Jam, and put that behind it. And very quickly, after we load the video, like Tyler said, you know, this video has been banned worldwide was the error message we got back. And we learned that you can't just use someone else's music. Right. And so then we actually called one of Cody's buddies who lived down the street and he had happened to just be there actually the week before handing out his demo CD for their group's, you know, recent kind of

launch of their music career. And one of the songs on it was awesome. And it was, what kind of, what kind of music was it? Like, rock, hip hop. So everyone should go look it up. Shout out Manic Bloom, and the song that we used was running from the scene. And just to be clear, because you can see this video, obviously, still available. And it's like there's a shot of, like, one of you guys, like, throwing a ball off the chimney, and then it going into the basket and, you know, throwing the ball from a distance.

And the idea was, let's put this up on YouTube and see what happens. We wanted to share it with family and friends Was really the main reason I had kind of had in the back of my mind A kind of bucket list idea of At some point in my life I would love to put up a video on this new thing called YouTube that got a million views

That sounded fun to me That wasn't the goal when we started filming But I think after I had finished editing it We all shared it on our Facebook status With something along the lines of Hey guys my buddies and I Just made a fun basketball video We're trying to see if they can get a million views

Thanks for watching When we come back in just a moment how Corey, Tyler, and the rest of the dudes began to grow an audience by giving themselves harder and harder trick shots to perform. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's April 2009 and the guys from Dude Perfect have just released a video montage of a bunch of trick shots in their backyard. They've sent it out to everyone they know. hoping to eventually get one million views.

The video definitely did not get a million views. It got probably maybe 100,000, probably closer to 50,000 views. Wait, that's unbelievable. How did that happen? I guess we had friends that had other friends, and people just shared it, and it bounced around. The numbers were not, you know, when you think of a viral video,

it wasn't that, but it did get passed around enough for someone to notice it. And the absolutely wild thing is that somehow the very next day, I'm laying in bed, you know, probably sleeping, you know, late like you would imagine in college. And I wake up to my phone buzzing and I pick it up grogly. And it's some lady who said, hey, I'm a producer at Good Morning America. And we wanted to play you guys' video today. Is that okay? So of course, I'm like, wait, what is happening?

How do they have my phone number? Still don't know how they got my number to this day. But of course I, you know, said, let me pray about it. Yes. And run around the house screaming. and telling the guys, you know, hey, we're about to be on Good Morning America. Did they want to interview you, too, or just play your video? They did.

Sore subject. Yeah. They said, hey, we would love for Diane Sawyer to ask you guys some live questions while the footage runs. And so we all huddled together in the living room and they've got us, you know, on the cell phone and we're about to record and kind of do a, you know, kind of live hit. Oh, it was an audio interview, not a video interview. Correct. Okay. It was audio.

There was no way for us to, you know, shoot a video feed in there at that point. But we're there. and we are ready, and we were ready for our phone to ring, and we'd give them our number, and they said, hey, we're about to call you guys, you'll see it on TV, but all you have to do is answer our questions. So we are sitting there, you know, salivating, ready to do this interview, and for whatever reason, they never called us.

But on camera, you can see Diane Sawyer saying, what was her phrase type? We're trying to phone you guys. We're trying to phone you guys. And so we're like, oh, you're not. No, you're not. We're sitting here. You're making us look bad. But they showed the footage,

and obviously for five college, guys, it was kind of a fun, 15 minutes of the spotlight. So they showed some of the video. You didn't not ever get a chance at that point to talk to Diane Sawyer. That's right. I haven't. Diane, they're waiting for your call. But it's on Good Morning America. After that first video and got attention, was there like a strategic like conversation like, hey, let's do more of these? Or was it just like, that was fun. Maybe we'll make another one. Yeah, very much just like, oh, that was cool. Like, I mean, that was the extent of our thoughts. Like, oh, no way, that was awesome.

It was that was cool. Let's do it somewhere else is probably what we really thought, right? That was fun. Now let's take it out of our backyard. We'll drag that basketball goal somewhere else and do it again. And how long did it take you to make a second video? A month maybe? Where did we go for our second one, Ty?

Was that the ranch? Yeah, the ranch that I was talking about that I would go to. That was my grandpa's place. So we did our second video at the ranch, and, you know, for us back at the time, it was where can we do a basketball shot? That was all we were thinking about. So Tyler had a good water tower, for example. It wasn't a water tower.

It was a feed tower. But to a city boy from Houston, it looks like a water tower. I am a city boy. So he goes up and sits on top of this thing and does a hook shot down into the goal. And we just wanted to change environments and mix it up. First try, by the way. That one was a FT. Wow.

So you're still making some videos, but this is just kind of a fun thing you're doing as college students. But in the fall of 2009, I guess you have your second. really big kind of moment, which was you decide to try and make the world's longest basketball shot. And Tyler, you were going to be the one to do this. Tell me what the idea of this was. So I think at this point, it was like, okay, well, how are we going to outdo people's expectations now? Because now we've done the backyard video. Now we'd done the ranch edition. So they'd already seen basketball trick shots taken out of, you know, a traditional environment. And so we were, I think I was in the car with Kobe, and we were driving to campus,

and we drove by Kyle Field, Texas A&M's football stadium. And I was like, we need to get in the stadium. We need to do the world's longest basketball shot. I was like, that would be something that people would watch. And the twins were communication majors. So I told Kobe, I was like, hey, if you get us in that stadium, I will throw a ball from the third deck, and I will make the shot. So he sent some emails around and I have no idea why, but somebody felt good about unlocking Kyle Field for us and giving us free reign of the stadium.

And you, by the way, and you brought your basketball hoop there? Oh, yeah, yeah, we brought our portable basketball goal. This is the $80 basketball hoop that you bought? It was 70. Okay. Yeah, I think it was 70. So you would just, like, load it into a truck and drive it there? That was pretty typical for us to load it up in the back of one of our trucks in college station and go drive it around.

round. So somebody gave you permission to go onto the field at Texas A&M. And where did you place the basketball hoop? The basketball goal was right on the other side of the track in between the track and the football field. And we only had four basketballs at the time. We had recruited a few buddies to go up there and help us rebound because we obviously knew it would take more than one shot to get. And this is a huge stadium, right? This is like, could see what? 60, 70,000 people? More than that, I think, at the time, I think it's closer to 85,000 probably. Wow. And so first I went up to the second deck, because I honestly, I didn't know how far I'd be able to throw it off the top.

I didn't know how far the ball would go. And so I went to the second deck and threw a ball off as hard as I could. And it sailed over the goal onto the football field. Wow. And at that point, I was like, we can do this. Like, we can go to the top of the stadium. And I am physically capable of throwing it far enough to make the shot. was all we needed to know because we would have stayed there as long as it took to get the shot.

And you brought one camera with you or did you bring more than one? Because you needed to film you and the basket and the right to the shot. We had upgraded to two cameras at this point and I think we had made the massive improvement of going from not just one picture camera to video mode to a second actual camcorder, the type that looks like kind of a cylinder that you put your hand through the little strap and your index finger on the top you can zoom. I'm I think we borrowed that from a buddy, so we were feeling extremely fancy. And was either camera static, or were they going to track the shot? Both handheld.

We could not afford to have a camera on a tripod that got hit by a basketball goal. It would have buried the whole company. Got it. Okay. How far were you from the basketball hoop? If I had to guess, I'd say it was like 60 yards, so, you know, 180 feet, something like that. Wow. And that's a basketball.

It's not a football. Different aerodynamics. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, a lot harder to throw. All right. So you get up to the third deck. Oh, the rest of the dudes.

At this point was six people. The rest of you guys are on the field or in different parts of the stadium. Kobe was up top with me filming. Okay. And Corey, you were on the field? I was on the field. I don't think I was holding a camera at that point. I was standing right by the goal.

But you were going to be the video editor, so I'm assuming you were the director. I don't think we would have thought about that way. You're thinking way too far ahead of where we were at. I'm over intellectualizing this. I got you. You know what? I like it, guys. Yes, I was the director.

Okay. All right. So you go up there, Tyler. and tell me what you do. So we start throwing basketballs. We had a few members of the Texas A&M basketball team that had kind of, they were kind of funneling out of practice to come watch, and we had kind of a little gallery going,

ended up popping one of our basketballs. I think it hit like a bench or something down below on the field. So we were down to three basketballs now at this point. And it's a little bit of a slow process, obviously, in getting three basketballs all the way back up to the top of a stadium. but we'd have somebody on the first deck that the guys on the field would throw it to the guy on the first deck would throw it to the guy on the second deck

the guy on the second deck would throw it up to the third deck the problem was if somebody in the relay chain threw the ball up but didn't throw it up quite high enough it would bounce all the way back down so it was a tricky, tricky situation elevators became our best friends as we moved forward with this company and we know what happens in the end

we know you made the shot but before you get there how many shots I mean I can't imagine how many shots you had to shoot before that you got one that went in. Yeah, I would say it's probably not as many shots as you would think, especially with only three basketballs, because after you shoot three basketballs, it probably takes a good five minutes to get everything back up top and reset. So it was only an hour and a half, two hours of shooting.

And so it didn't take too long to make the shot. Even an hour and a half, I mean, that sounds like it's amazing that you made it in an hour and a half, But that's still a long time. You know, it's a lot of like, okay, this didn't work. Let's get the balls back up. Oh, no, didn't work. Let's get the balls back up to him. Like, you must have been convinced that you would eventually make it.

Yeah. I mean, like I said, when I threw the ball off the second deck and I knew that we were capable of doing it, we would have been there a week if we had to. And you got to remember every once in a while, the ball would come really close, right? It would hit the back iron, you know, hit the rim. And at that point, you're like, oh, I'm staying until as long as long as it. takes. Like, I'm not giving up on this. We always liken it to playing battleship. Like, if you just keep guessing and keep throwing enough, then it's going to go in at some point.

Like, it has to. Like, the ball can only go so many places. And so as long as you're willing to put in the reps, any trick shot theoretically is possible. But sometimes, like, there may be two million places where a ball could land. And you can't throw it two million times because you just, you time would wrap. But, I mean, I guess you're kind of calibrating your throw. And you're, you're, there's muscle memory and you're feeling it and you're trying to make tiny adjustments but we're humans we're not robots right we can't be as perfect as robot but you're kind of feeling that and just making tiny adjustments hoping that everything kind of goes your way at some point i think this is where tie being a quarterback really came into play right because you just said it and what you just

said is is the answer right it's making adjustments so goes in and how did you react oh we lost our minds i mean I think that's what a lot of people gravitate towards two, is especially at the beginning, was seeing the celebrations and the excitement and the joy and just that like pure elation of not only is it over, but you accomplished what you set out to do. So you put this out on the YouTube channel, on Corey's YouTube channel, and I'm assuming you wrote, hey, watch us do the world's longest basketball shot. And did it just go crazy overnight? This was a simpler video in a sense.

Right. So everything we'd done up until this, probably three or four videos had been, you know, what someone would probably call a montage, almost felt like a music video. multiple shots, music behind it, all spliced together. This one we wanted to try something different, and obviously we didn't film multiple shots in the stadium, we just did this one. And so in our heads, we were like, man, we got this. This is going to be one super shareable clip. It's going to be awesome.

And it's funny, we put it up, and we were expecting this instant reaction. People were going to go crazy over it, and we put it up, and for a while it just kind of went flat. That's amazing, because this was, I mean, anyone can watch it. It's totally nuts. And for whatever reason, yep, people didn't pick it up at first. So what happened? How did it get attention?

So it was probably three days later and, you know, we were all split up. I think maybe we had done the shot right before some sort of vacation. Maybe there was a break in our schedule. And so I remember my brother and I hopped on a plane to North Carolina with our family. My grandparents lived in North Carolina. And so we hop on the plane and I mean, I was like literally thinking about how sad I was about the fact that that cool video, we had shot recently, didn't do well, and, you know, whatever, let's just go on vacation and not worry about it. And my brother and I hop on this plane and we're flying and it's about a two-hour

flight. And so as we land, we flip our, you know, my phone back off airplane mode. And all of a sudden my phone just starts vibrating like I'd never seen mine or anyone else's do before. And I mean, I thought it was broken. And so, you know, finally, the screen kind of slows down enough for me to read a text message or two. And what people had said was something to the effect of, hey, guys, your most recent video has 2 million views, and it was shared on Yahoo's homepage. And so that turned out to be what had happened.

Yahoo's homepage, which I don't know if you remember, but that was like the spot. It was a thing. Yeah, people, that was people's homepage. That was a life changer for people. Yep. And so it turned out, honestly, to be the same thing for us. It had been shared as the main kind of, you know,

clickable thing on Yahoo's homepage and about, two hours it had gotten about two million views and because this one was so shareable it just instantly went bananas and not only what did it get a lot of views but it got picked up by sports center and every sports talk show you can imagine and every morning show and night show and like we landed in north carolina and went to um you know somewhere to eat and you know obviously we're texting each other and laughing about how crazy this is but we walk into eat somewhere and i look up on the tv and there we are wow that was that was the first time that something that something like that had ever happened.

You're looking at the TVs, like they're probably playing the Sports Center, and you're on it. Yep, we're just sitting there at a burger place and look up at the screen, and, you know, they're playing it over and over, and people in the restaurant are pointing at it, and it was just one of those, like, whoa, moments.

It was pretty cool. Were they saying on SportsCenter, oh, this is totally fake? 100%. Yeah, that's what everybody was saying. I think... Yeah, I think Carmelo Anthony was the one who was on the top 10 desk at the time

when the Kyle Field job. was blowing up and he was the one they asked him. They were like, Carmelo, is this real? And he was like, no way, not a chance. Wow. Were you initially kind of sad about that? Like, oh my God, it's not fake. Did you feel bad when people are saying that? There was a little bit of pride of like, hey, come on people. Like, we're capable about this. You know, Ty's an athlete. He can do this. This is real. But there was also a piece where we were like, hey, if that's what it takes for people to talk about it, you know, at this magnitude, you know, go for it. Yeah, I mean, there's, like Corey said, there's definitely a part of you that's like,

like, why would you not believe us? But then it was also just a testament to, like, look what we pulled off. Like, there's professional athletes that are out there saying this can't be done, and we just did it. I love that. I mean, it's so, it's, it makes total sense. Because if you did fake it and people said it was fake, then you might have felt bad because you're like, oh, they found us out. Yeah. Well, even going back to the first video, that was a decision that we actually had to make very early on because we had a shot in the original backyard video, the first one we ever uploaded, it hit just in front of the rim, but hit the net, looked like a swish. And we were like, we could totally put this in the video and literally no one would question it.

And this conversation came up and we just said, like, look, if we are truly going to say that everything we do is real, then we can't have one fake shot or we lose all credibility. With then it's like, okay, well, if you faked that one, then what else did you fake? And so we decided from that point on anything that we do is going to be 100% real, 100% authentic. And this is going to be what Dude Perfect represents going forward. All right, you guys get all this attention for this video. And clearly the gears in your head start to turn, thinking maybe there's something bigger here. Because that year you actually set up an LLC.

You filed the paperwork to set up Dude Perfect LLC. see who came up with, who went to the team to the other five guys and said, let's just like register a business here. I think it was right after that shot had happened and that video had done pretty well. My brother and I were back home with our family and it was right around the masters. I mean, I remember. And Kobe and I were kind of sitting on the couch watching the golf tournament. And Kobe looked at me and he said, you know, we should probably see if dudeperfect.com is

available. Like if we're going to go for this thing, we should maybe make it official. And so he logged on to whatever domain company. And for 999, we snagged dudeperfect.com. And so I think that was, it kind of solidified it in our minds as like, okay, this is the thing. All right. You're still in college. You're still college students.

And I guess you get contacted by YouTube, right? At this point, this is 2009. They're like, hey, do you guys want to be a YouTube partner? Like, is that what they asked? I think so. It's changed over time kind of how that partnership program works. Now it's a little more automated. if you, there's some very low threshold. If you are able to achieve X amount of views,

then you can start to advertise against your stuff and make AdSense's. So Google owns YouTube, right? So it's Google AdSense is kind of the piece that people make money on. And so I think back then it was you had to have X amount of followers or X amount of views, but then YouTube itself would kind of contact you and say, do you want to opt in to be able to advertise? So we did. But of course, I mean, we are talking almost no money whatsoever. I think, It was probably four or five videos in. Ty comes running into the living room at some point. This is when we're still at college.

And he said, guys, we've officially made it. I think we just made collectively enough money to buy a sandwich. Technically, we had each made one cent, but I had the incredible foresight to say one day, we will each be able to take this money that we made from people watching our videos, and we will be able to go buy a sandwich with it. Yeah, that's what it was. Because people don't realize that even if you get a million of views on YouTube,

It does not that you don't get paid that much money. Well, especially back then. It was just so early. There weren't the type of, you know, demand that there is today from the advertiser side. Yeah. All right. So you've got this LLC. But this was like still, you know, early days, right?

And so, and you guys were in college. But presumably you kept making videos. What was the cadence at that point? After that, you know, that shot that you make in the stadium, I mean, there's a demand. So did you guys say, you know, we got to do this. this every week or we got to do this every month or what what did you what did you think i don't think there was a cadence even at that point i think it was still so early on even at that point we still had no intention of like oh man if we play our cards right you know this could be huge i mean we were

i guess a little bit small-minded and and didn't see like the big picture until a lot later down the road this is still just super fun but you guys were getting attention like the you know media outlets were interested in you. I mean, you were a bunch of college kids making these cool fun videos. So presumably you were sort of seen as a novelty act. They're just like, right? Something like that at the time. Yeah, I mean, it's very much like the trick shot guys. I mean, that's what people labeled us as is, oh, those are the basketball trick shot guys that are doing this. And then we said, oh, we're going to shake that up. And then we started throwing footballs. Really diversified.

I read that in like 2010, you got a corporate sponsor, GMC, that came aboard. which sounds that may sound to a lot of people like oh my gosh you got a corporate sponsor but oftentimes it's like hey we'll give you $10,000 to make a video and we want to put our logo on it right I mean that's that's what that probably something like that meant at the time yeah I mean you're not far off so GMC calls and they wanted us to do first of all just the fact that somebody wanted to pay us to make a video like that was mind-blowing right to us we are like we are scamming these people like this is incredible and so we show up up, I think it was down around Austin. Yep.

And they had like a couple of, I guess there was like a few different videos that we were going to try and do that we were going to post on our YouTube channel. And then they were going to use as NBA finals commercial. And then they were going to use another one during the World Cup as a commercial. And so we show up to this place in Austin that we were doing an airplane shot. You were going to be in a single engine airplane flying over a basketball hoop. That's right. They basically asked us, hey, guys, if y'all could. attempt any type of shot, what would it be? And just off the cuff, we throw out, oh, I mean,

we'd love to make a shot out of an airplane. And so like Ty said, then, you know, the eyes got dotted and the T's got crossed. And all of a sudden we roll up in a van to Austin. And there's this huge tent with at least 50 to 100 cars. And we kind of pull up and it's foggy in the morning. And, you know, we're all looking around. I must be having a wedding or something out here. God, this is a crazy event. Like, man, it's early for all these people to be out here. That's weird. and we walk in, and as soon as we walk inside the flap of the tent, people start looking at us and clapping, and we're like, oh, my gosh, they're here for us.

That was the production crew. That was more than a flip camera on video mode. Oh, my God. And there was a real airplane. Oh, yeah, sitting out in the field just waiting for us. Like a crop duster, like a low-flying airplane? It wasn't a crop duster. It was just a Piper cub and yellow.

And so the idea was you would have a basketball hoop in a middle of a field and you would fly low over it. And Tyler, you were the one who was going to take the shot. Yep, that was the concept. How'd you do that? What'd you do? So I get up in this plane and I'm talking to the GMC guys and they're like, hey, you know, just keep in mind like we don't want to hit the truck because the serial number on this truck was like 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-4. And it's like, you know, we've only got one of these in the U.S., the other two are off somewhere else. The other one's like getting finalized or whatever. So they're like, hey, don't, you know, whatever you do, don't hit the windshield or the hood and put like a massive dent in this truck that we only have one of. So the truck was sitting probably, I don't know, 30 feet in front of the basketball goal where it could be seen in the camera. And so I'm like, that's fine. It's like, it's way far away from the goal. I'm not going to hit the truck or whatever. But thanks for like the vote of confidence to put that in my mind right before I go up in the plane. And so we get up in this plane and they load probably there wasn't a lot of room. They could only put like one bag of basketballs in the back of this plane, which is like eight.

Because you're just going to keep going to fly around and flying around until you make it. Yep. And I just remember, like, once we got up in the air and we kind of go for this first, like, pass, not getting ready to take the shot yet, but I looked down and I'm like, oh my gosh, they moved the truck right underneath the goal. I'm like, what are they doing? And they hadn't moved the truck at all. It just looked a lot closer to the goal from up in the air than it was. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, this is going to be, like, I have no control over where this goes. I've never dropped a ball out of a plane. Like, who knows where this thing is going? And so we come around for the first pass and it was kind of starting to rain. I remember when I put

my hands out the window, I was like, oh, gosh, that kind of hurts because the rain was like spitting behind the propeller. And it just felt like a bunch of needles going into my hands when I stuck my hands out the window to drop the ball. So we are coming around. I'm like, this is the airplane shot. This is the first one we ever take. I dropped the ball out of the plane, out of the side of the plane, and we're moving so fast that I can't really tell where the ball goes after I drop it. Yeah. And the guys come on the radio on the walkie-talkie,

and I could just tell, like, everyone went from this, like, super excited. Like, this is going to be incredible. I can't believe we're going to do a shot out of an airplane, too. This is most likely never going to happen because it was about, like, 150 feet past the goal. Like the worst miss, probably in the history of Dude Perfect to that point, furthest from the goal, like not even close. Oh, my God. And so you could just tell the energy was just like way down at that point.

Oh. Yeah. And so you, Ty, you're up in the plane. And you're trying to make this shot from like 100 plus feet up. And Corey presumably here on the ground. What was going on there? So I'm down at the bottom at this point. And the crew, like Ty said, is just deflated.

I mean, this is going to be a big time TV commercial. They're all dialed in ready to go. And that first shot missed by, you know, like Tyler said, a couple hundred feet, if not, you know, 80 yards. I mean, it was like insane. There were some cows way far away. And the ball almost hit a cow. And I'm like, oh, gosh, this is about to me the most embarrassing day of our lives. So at this point, I'm like, okay, well, that's fine.

It was, you know, I'm just going to drop the ball earlier was like the only thought I had at this. But it was the only thing I thought I could do. Like, no control over this. I just got to drop it earlier. And I'm like, okay, here we go, you know, round two. But I'm like, golly, this is taken forever because to reset the shot, the pilot had to take like a pretty huge loop to get back around. And so I'm just picturing how long like the Kyle Field shot took to get rebounds.

Well, this was like, I mean, after we shot the ball, it was another like three minutes just to get back around to a point where we were even able to attempt another shot. So now I'm starting to do the math in my head. Like, how many, what am I going to get? like, you know, 30 shots at this before it's sunset. You're probably stressed out, by the way, because it's like a professional crew of people. And these are like hardened, experienced production people. I'm sure you must have felt like, oh, God, I don't think they realize how long it's going to take.

For sure. And we'd never had people waiting on us either to, like, film us. Like, it was always just us. And I didn't care if the other guys had to, you know, sit down on the ground at Kyle Field and throw up a couple more rounds of rebounds. And so we come around for the second pass, finally, after what felt like forever. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm just going to drop it earlier and see what happens. It's probably going straight through the windshield of the new GMC Denali pickup truck. And I dropped the ball, and it looked like it was, like, pretty good timing.

But, you know, the plane keeps going, so I can't really see. And all of a sudden, like, the radio, all I hear is just... Wow. Well, I was, I told the pilot, I was like, I think I just made it. When we come back in just a moment, how Tyler, Corey, and the rest of the team keep Dude Perfect going while keeping their day jobs. A decision that at first nearly runs them into the ground. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz.

So it's 2010 and Tyler is up in an airplane for Dude Perfect's first sponsored video. And he can't quite tell from up in the air, but it looks like his second attempt has actually gone in. It took us like five minutes to actually confirm, okay, we did make it because nobody could even talk at that point. Wow. And it was, I mean, that had to be like one of the most like surreal moments in DP history as far as like just not expecting a shot to happen. And then second try out of an airplane swished it. Wow. So it was just like a complete opposite emotion from after that first shot.

I mean, you guys were still in college. Some of you graduated because I think, Tyler, you would have another year of college, right? Yep. And so this is May of 2010. You were in commercials for the World Cup, for the NBA finals. At that point, I have to assume that people at least on campus knew you guys, knew who you were. Yeah, I think that my senior year was a little bit different in the fact that people started to recognize. recognize us around campus and you know when the guys would come back in town to film something and

we'd have a basketball goal in the back of the truck like everybody knew what we were going to do they're like oh nice dude perfect's going to film something and you know people in in our classes and stuff would know and they had seen the videos and so there was a little bit of a small i guess celebrity status to it but even then it still wasn't like a major thing at that point corey you and cody and garratt you guys graduate right and coby too and cobi too and And you went off to get a job, like a real job, right? Well, so again, five of us and three of the guys, not Kobe and I, were either getting married or had already gotten married by the end of school. And so we basically had to kind of make a decision on how we were going to handle the continuing Dude Perfect stuff.

And so my brother and I decided to move back to Austin, which is where our parents were living at the time. And so we lived at their house with them and took the free option so that we could work on Dude Perfect during the week. Because this was not sustainable. You were not making, you cannot make a living off of this. Yeah, not even remotely. So we had gotten paid by GMC, and that was essentially it. We'd made some ad money, but it's probably sandwich money at that point. And, you know, that was cool.

And that definitely was like opened our minds to the fact that this could be a real job. And so I think that gave us enough motivation to try and keep it going after school, but we didn't know how it was going to work. And so my brother and I kind of took the mantle of the weekly stuff. Kobe did a lot of the business. calls and then I did a lot of the editing or all of the editing at that point. Working with them on trying to get sponsors? Yeah, especially once that GMC thing happened, I think GMC or the production company

probably is who really won the award for that and it turned out to be that we didn't scam them but in some sense, right, you know, they got a great deal from us because it just got a ton of publicity. It was a great video. Over a billion impressions on that campaign. I remember what I said. That's exactly right. So that production company probably got a ton of business.

I think they probably did. And so we started getting calls from different groups and, you know, agencies and production companies and brands. And so we just realized that this is a whole thing. Like this is a world that is available to us. And so Kobe fielded a lot of that stuff. And then I was editing everything. And so we lived at our house while the other guys and their wives at this point, you know, had real jobs.

And you would just gather every week from different, like, because you're in Austin, Tyler, you were in college station. where were the other guys? They were up in Dallas. So, I mean, at this point, not like we had a lot of brand deals or opportunities anyways, but when we did, we would just tell companies that we were so busy with speaking engagements and things like that during the week that if they wanted to do a branded dude perfect video, it would have to be on a Saturday. And, you know, the brands are like, what?

There's no way you're that busy during the week. We're like, yeah, yeah, it's going to have to be Saturday. When in reality, I was still in school and the other guys were working other jobs. Like Garrett was working in our architecture firm and you guys were working for your dad's church, Corey, right? You and your brother. And I guess, Tyler, when you graduated the next year, like you went and worked for a landscaping company. Yeah, so I had done an internship at a landscaping company in Prosper and I went back to work there. I was laying sod at the beginning on a maintenance crew and then eventually kind of oversaw like our residential department and a little bit of our commercial maintenance stuff.

So let me understand this. Texas is a very big state. you guys would drive once a week somewhere to a central location and film something to put out. Well, I wish it was a central location. The reality was these guys were grounded here in kind of the Dallas area, right?

They're married and their families are here, so Kobe and I were in Austin, and it is about a four-hour drive. So it's kind of past that easy drive status to where it's like, oh, this drive is pretty rough, but we probably drove it at least once, if not twice a week, for four years. This was what kind of looked at back.

We think of as absolute, you know, the grind years, no question. So you would leave super early in the morning on a Saturday or what, you'd leave on a Friday night? Yeah, probably Saturday morning. And then you would film all weekend and then drive back on Sunday night? Exactly, drive back and then I would edit it. And so you had to have a successful shot in that two-day period. Definitely, no question. Certainly felt like it.

And meantime, you were thinking of new kind of tricks and stuff. stunts to do, right? Because they had to be better than the previous one. How do you be in an airplane shot? Like, especially without a budget. It was tough to continue to try and out do yourselves, right? I mean, this is back when all we did were trick shots. And so the bar is simple. It's make it better than the previous video. And what that usually means to people is farther or higher or something that just feels like a totally different concept. I mean, you guys were, like, you know, you got on Jimmy Kimmel, you were, you know, you were getting attention. Meantime. Meanty. time, Ty, you're like laying sod Monday to Friday.

Yeah. Wheat eating, laying sod, selling plants, all the above. Because you couldn't, even though you were getting sponsors and attention, see, this is amazing to me. It was not, it wasn't actually that much money to make a sustainable business. That's right. Yeah. What explains that?

I mean, I'm trying, with all of the views you were getting and was it just like you guys weren't asking for enough? You were just kind of, or was it you just, I don't know. just the the industry wasn't quite mature yet what what what explains that i think it's closer to what you said the industry just wasn't quite there i mean i think even at the time dude perfect has always been kind of a premier brand we were charging even back then what we felt like was top dollar for a youtube group to be charging a brand to do a video like what would you charge a brand back in 2011 to do a video for them gosh i know GMC the very first original thing and this is for a tv commercial so this

felt way bigger than a YouTube video, but this was kind of the first thing we ever heard. I think they paid us 50 grand. And I mean, that was, it honestly was life-changing because it made us feel like this was... That's $10,000 a person. Absolutely. And then we kind of learned about taxes and we're like, oh, that's $4,000 a person. But that was the first number we'd really ever heard. And so I think we, I think honestly, the biggest thing was we had to split it with five guys. And that just, that really carves into it pretty quickly. Yeah. It's like, this was your side hustle, because

you had the full-time job, but clearly you had the vision of making this your main hustle, not your side hustle. But you guys were driving four hours back and forth from Dallas, I think basically until 2014. And from what I understand, it got to the point where some of you were like, I don't think I could keep doing this. This is not working. That's right. So Kobe and I were the ones driving four hours back and forth each time, and we were working on it during the week. And so there came a point where we drove, you know, a handful of times in a row, and we were working on a video all through the night, two nights in a row. And, you know, I wasn't used to doing that even coming out of college. And so for whatever reason, my body just broke.

And so we were at one of Ties buddies' ranches, and I woke up in the morning after finally having, you know, gotten to sleep at, you know, whatever, 72 hours or something. And so I wake up and I go to brush my teeth in the morning and the water is just running down the right side of my face. And I turned the light on and look in the mirror, and I thought I'd had a stroke because the right side of my face was not functioning. And so I went and tapped Kobe and woke him up. And he drives me in the middle of nowhere, Texas, wherever we were at this ranch. And he drives me basically 100 miles an hour towards the nearest hospital or emergency room that's probably 30, 45 minutes away. And so I get there and they tell me, you know, after doing some tests on me that I had what's called Bell's Palsy.

and it's basically kind of a paralysis of the face that they still don't know exactly what causes it, but what they usually see is stress and lack of sleep. And so they call it temporary. It took six full months for me to get a single twitch in my faceback. And it's just a practical example of how hard we really were going, and we would just do whatever it took to get that next video out, and to the point where we just broke. And so that's kind of me at this point emotionally, four years in,

like, you know, I'm looking at the guys when, you know, when we're meeting up one day. And I was like, guys, I don't know if I can keep doing this. Corey, were you ever even slightly resentful of the other guys? Because you were also going home and editing this stuff. And that's a lot of work. Were you ever like, God, you know, I got to do all this work. Honestly, I don't know that I would have described it as resentful. I mean, sure, did thoughts cross my mind of, hey, these guys are not having to do

to do perfect as much as I am. Sure. But the reality was they were working crazy hours with their other jobs. So we were both doing the same amount of work hours-wise because they had full-time jobs during the week. And we all had DP during the weekend. So, you know, logically, I couldn't really go there. But I think we were all so excited about what could be with Dude Perfect that we just powered through. But it hit a breaking point.

And for me, it was the kind of physical piece. And I guess around like 2013 or 2014 maybe somewhere around there, there was kind of a turning thing. point where you guys were like some event for for March Madness and and Tyler I guess you suddenly realized you had to make a decision like you have this this landscaping gig and you had to choose one job or the other yep I remember if it was the Houston Final Four or the Atlanta Final Four but they they had flown out ahead of time because they needed to be there Friday I was having to work I flew out Friday night down there and Saturday when we're all down there doing our event I got an email from my boss at the time, and it said basically like, hey, you can't miss any more Saturdays.

Like, you know, if you're going to work here, I need you to be here Saturdays. So I remember I showed Garrett first. I think we were sitting on the plane headed back home. And I was like, man, I don't like, I don't know what we're going to do. Yeah. I mean, of course, now looking back on it, knowing what we know, I would have thought you might have been thinking, yeah, I got that. email and I thought, you can take this email and shove it up your, but that's not what you were thinking. Well, and we weren't in a place, not only what I hope that wouldn't be my thought, but we were also just not in a place that could warrant a reaction like that. I think when we really looked at it, we were like, okay, what it, because Garrett had wanted to make a change at his architecture firm, I think, anyways, and Cody was looking at making a move. And so I knew I had to find something else if we were going to continue to do perfect. And so I was like, what if, this was in April. This was,

was during the final four, I was like, let's look and see what would happen if for the rest of the year, for the next, you know, eight months, we just tried dude perfect. And we had it figured up after doing all this research that we could each take home about $8,000 the rest of the year. And for some reason, that, we felt good about that. For some reason, that was like, okay, well, okay. We can totally do this until December and see what happens. And so. You just do it on Saturdays. So you knew that you could make $8,000 each. during the year. Yeah. Yeah, it was still, it wasn't supplementing the income that we were making at our other jobs at that point. And so it was definitely a reason. It was ramen money. Yeah, yeah, it was,

it was definitely ramen money. So, you know, we had to add that conversation with not only our wives, but our in-laws. And, you know, for me and Garrett and Cody, we all had somebody else to take care of at that point. It wasn't just us. So you had kids. Yeah, I think I didn't have kids yet. I think Garrett may have just had his first kid. Wow. Which that's unfathomable to me now, to think back to have a child and to think I'm going to quit my architecture career because he had his master's and a pretty solid job and going to YouTube videos because this is this is cat videos still you know for the stage of YouTube this is if you tell someone you're a YouTuber it's you work in your basement so for Kobe and I we you know it was easy we're still living with our family

any money was enough for us and you know anything for us was gravy and obviously at some point we wanted to make a little bit of money but we were okay and these guys were having to look at their you know, father-in-law is in the eye and explain how they're going to take care of their girl. And it was funny because for Kobe and I, we're like, great. Thank goodness. We can all, you know, kind of try and do this together. For those guys, someone had to pull the parachute first. And so I remember listening to the guys, you know, after deciding this was going to happen. And they kind of looked at each other and it's like, okay, cool. Like, I get that we're all going to quit, but who's going to quit first? Right. Because, you know, once you say that, you're burning that

bridge realistically at that company. So it was kind of a funny conversation. All right. So it's mid-2014. You guys all decide to go in, all in on this thing. And you've got to professionalize, right? I mean, I'm assuming you've got to, like, create some kind of infrastructure, at least have some kind of some system to bring an incoming inquiries. And so I guess at this point, what? Tyler, your dad kind of helps out, decide he's going to help you guys out? Yeah, when we first did the GMC, when they sent that proposal, like, is one of the first brands to ever work with us. And we got a contract, we were like, what in the world? Like, this is like 50 pages. Like, who's going to read this? And my dad, being in sales and, you know, being a good negotiator and stuff, we were just like, let's just send it over to him and see what he says about it. And so that was kind of how that relationship started. And what about camera work? Did you hire a professional camera team or did you already have a team at that point? no we sure did and i think we were probably still at the about the same cameras as we started with to be totally honest we may have upgraded one step whatever step that was at the time my big stipulation when we moved from austin to dallas was that i really needed some help on the editing side so i told the guys hey i will you know uproot my life and leave all my friends and family and stuff over here if you guys are cool with us taking a total leap of faith and not only all going full time

but being willing to throw enough salary at somebody to where we can hire an editor to help me. So it was tricky because we didn't even know if we had enough money to make this whole thing make sense for us to begin with, but then we had to hire somebody, you know, on top of that. So it was tough, but it was definitely the right call, no question. And when you decided to go all in, how did you do, because you got to do business development, you got to get sponsors in, you got to get revenue in. So how did that happen? How did you, how did you start to bring more of those people in? I don't know, maybe a month after going full time, we got an email from Nerf, who has been one of our longest partner that we've had.

They have been since then. And so we had signed our first big Nerf deal to come out with Do Perfect Nerf products and do videos for them. And that was like our first big partnership. And that for us just kind of confirmed like, okay, like this is what we're supposed to be doing. Like this is a great first step in the right direction going full time. We still didn't think that we needed an office. So for the first year, we pretty much just met at like Panera or Corner Bakery or whatever

coffee shop we could sit in and not order anything until they kicked us out. And we got away with that for a while. But after some time, obviously, had to start, like, making more real business decisions, I guess, and financial expenses, like, okay, we do need an office if we're going to hire somebody to edit our videos so they can have a place to sit there and work. And it was kind of a slow transition rolling into all that stuff. and just kind of learn along the way process of what that looks like. So once you guys made that decision, you gave yourself like six to eight months, right, to see if it would work.

Was there, I mean, you got the Nerf deal, so that was great. That was going to be sustainable. But then was it just like things started to just come in as you put more videos out. You got more attention. More stuff came in. It just became like a natural kind of organic growth like that, or did you have to go out and hustle and get the work to you? It was still a hustle, but I think we also moved into our first office, and office is overstating it. I mean, it was a pretty fun space.

It was like a strip mall, right? It was like a, what, 2000 or 3,000 square foot or something like that? Correct. It was a public-facing building, but it was a cool space, right? And so we knew we physically needed somewhere to office out of, but we didn't want it to be your typical, you know, cube farm. And so we made it as cool as we could, and we built it out in a cool way. And it was very, you know, sporty on the inside, an activity base and a basketball goal hanging on the wall. and shuffleboard and ping pong tables and pool tables and a space that was very, you know,

natural to film in. And so I think when people saw that, I think it was like, oh, these guys are serious. Like, this is the first time we've ever seen anyone online basically create a space. This is before there were hype houses and all these places in L.A. now with these influencers. And did you, you were financing these videos essentially through your sponsorship, right? because the videos, even if they were getting a lot of views, that was not your revenue model at the time. It was a consistent revenue model, right? I think that's the cool thing about the ad side, is you can start to predict and get a little bit of a predictable cash flow there. So it helped. I would say we probably thought about it more so as our YouTube money, meaning the ads,

we can pay for our bills, right? And then the sponsorship stuff, that's what can hopefully help us, you know, support our families. Did you guys, you know, now it's a business, and this isn't going to be your livelihood. And you got to really good quality. The pressure on you is to make high quality videos because you've already been making high quality videos so there's an expectation. You watch them.

They look seamless, simple, because it's so hard to make them. I know that, looking at it. But that does create creative tension in any environment, even in our environment. I know you're all friends and stuff, but in any kind of business arrangement, there's always going to be tension.

Have you had big arguments between the first? five of you at certain points? I mean, we're brothers, right? Like, we have known each other for 14, 16 years at this point. So anything that you can imagine with family, you know, with five brothers, that's what's happened. So we've certainly, you know, been upset at each other many times. And that's a lot of people. That's a lot of cooks in the kitchen to try to agree and try to vote. And so as you can imagine, it gets messy. But I think we've all just, we've aligned on the things that really matter, right? We've majored on the majors and minored on the minors. And so, So our, you know, tent pole things, right, quality and that people can trust everything.

We put out, like, those things continue to kind of guide what we do. And so I think as a group, you know, we didn't have to convince each other about those things over and over again. I think, you know, for us, there's obviously been moments throughout the 12 years that have been extremely difficult and, you know, very confrontational and difficult moments. And I think the only reason that Dude Perfect is still a thing today is truly because of our faith. And I think, you know, as five Christian guys, Jesus was all about loving people and forgiving people and serving people. And you get a lot of opportunities to do that when you have disagreements with your friends that you work with. And so we've definitely had our opportunities to do that. And I think truly that is the only reason that Dude Perfect is still a thing 12 years later.

Well, on that point, right? And that makes a lot of sense. You can always circle back to this thing you share, which is in your case, it's your faith. and you can kind of lean on that to resolve things. And I know we're talking about this more than normal because you guys don't really talk a lot about this on the videos, which I think is actually great. I mean, in a sense that you've got all kinds of kids

and people watching and some people just, they respect faith, but they don't want really not interested or don't want to hear about it. Yeah, I don't think it's something that we purposefully try to hide. Our main purpose for making the videos and any type of entertainment we do is to bring people together, right? I mean, I think at the end of the day, you know, we've actually been talking about it recently. Our mission statement is to be the world's most trusted world-class entertainment.

So I think for us, I don't think that we feel like it's necessary, you know, nor is it necessarily very entertaining to sit around and talk about our faith on videos. But it is the most important thing to us. So I think we put, you know, entertainment as the key piece of our videos. And if anyone digs, you know, at all, they can kind of see, you know, what we're really all about. And we're happy to tell anyone that asks. You know, we heard my boys earlier in the conversation 12 and 10 years old. And that's how I learned about you through my boys because I'm not a YouTube watcher. And I'm in my mid-40s.

It's just not my thing, right? And it's really cool how they connect with what you do. And as I've gone down the rabbit hole of Dude Perfect, it's clear that you have a massive audience. Probably your primary audience is like boys, right? Like probably between 5 and 15. Is that fair? That's your biggest core audience? I think it's definitely our biggest.

I think we've been surprised over the years as we've started to transition out of just being the basketball trick shot guys. You know, now we've got the trick shot videos are probably our least popular series we have now, which is awesome. I mean, we love that. That's cool to see, you know, us try new things and they work, I guess. So they're well received by the audience.

So now we've got stereotypes and the battles. And these are shows, I should mention, these are like sketch shows, like stereotypes. Yeah. You have one where you all go to the beach and there's like stereotype of the person who always gets sunny. burned and like the muscle guy and like that's what it is yep we've just tried all these different

series and it's cool to see our audience grow with us and especially like me you talk about some of these athletes and celebrities that we've been fortunate enough to meet and you know on tour we we were we were shocked to see how many uh females were there i mean it was a good like i would say 70 30 60 40 split between girls and boys that were coming to the to the tour in 2019 all right here's the other thing that's happened to you guys you've become really famous I I mean, I, you know, there are going to be some people who listen to this who haven't heard of you. And but, but just so they know, you have like a bigger YouTube channel than the NBA, than the NFL, than Ariana Grande. I mean, you've, you've had 10 billion views of your videos.

Like, you guys are really famous. Like, you get recognized wherever you go. How is that, must change your life, right? You must get, you probably can't walk through an airport terminal without getting stopped. It's, I mean, there's no question. and it's drastically changed our personal lives. And again, something we didn't think about, right? I mean, when it started happening a lot, which I'd say is probably, I don't know, five or six years ago now is when we were like, oh, snap.

Like people are recognizing us everywhere we go and not just as a group, but individually, it's tricky. I would say the large majority of the time, it's a really positive experience. But at the same time, you know, we're regular people too. And so we'll be out at dinner and we're with our family and our kids and we'll be, you know, tucked in the back of a booth. at a Mexican restaurant, and then you'll have a family stand up, and the dad will say something like, hey, take a picture with our kids. You know, and he's not really asking. He's kind of saying, hey, do it, and you're stuck in the back of the booth.

And if you take one picture, then everyone in the restaurant's going to notice, and, you know, before you know, you'll have a line. And it's not that we don't appreciate everyone in the restaurant that their kids know us or that their parents know us and that they want to take a picture, but obviously it just changes the whole dynamic. Yeah. I think it just goes back to our faith. It's why we handle situations like we do.

I mean, if it was purely from a selfish perspective, I think there would definitely be times when you walk out of the office and you're like, man, the last thing I want to do is go take more pictures. I'm trying to get home and see my own family. But at the end of the day, like, if you think about it, like, you know, I may have 20 or 30 of those interactions in a day. I'm not going to be able to remember the kids or family's names that I meet or anything like that. But that kid is probably going to remember that experience for the rest of his life. But it's definitely a conscious decision that you have to make that, yes, it may be. be inconvenient. It may be frustrating. You may have just come off of having an absolutely horrible day personally, but there you walk outside and there's a group of 20 people waiting

to take a picture with you. You've got to decide in that moment, you know, how am I going to handle this? Like, they have no idea what's going on in your personal life. I mean, and there's no way they could. Yeah. You guys expanded to a live show. You've got multi-channel shows on YouTube. Clearly, you've got a vision to make this bigger. By the way, how many people work for Dude Perfect today? We're probably up to, I've been between 15 to 20, you know, depending on what time people are listening to this. Yeah, full time. And I think it's estimated you're like a $30 million business, annual business. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think so.

I think we choose not to discuss finances on a detailed level, but yeah, there's plenty of articles and reports out there and they're not too far off on the estimates. All right, so you are a pretty you're a media company now what's the ambition i mean what do you guys want this to be because it's you know some people might say oh those are the trick shot guys some people might say oh those are the youtube guys some people might say oh that's those guys that do that live show tell me tell me the vision i mean the truth is i think we like all the things you just said right i think we want to be relevant on all the platforms right anything that's popular we want to have a presence there and and just continue to kind of shine our our light in those different areas

So we're trying to do a bunch of different things. We've got a movie that we're, you know, just starting to work on. And so we're kind of trying to tackle it all. And it's it kind of goes back to us being competitive guys, right? There's a piece of it that's the business side. And we think that part is fun. And, you know, just like any entrepreneur, we like growing the business. And then there's also a piece of us that, you know, no matter what we do, we're still

competitive guys. And we like to try and, you know, tackle some different areas. And if that means that, you know, we want to make a movie, then, hey, let's try it. That's a completely new experience. and we want to see it happen. How crazy would you have thought if when you're in college, one of you guys was like, we're going to make a really, really significant business

that's going to generate a lot of money out of these stupid things we're doing in our group house? I think if you had said that two years ago, we would have thought it was crazy. I don't think you had to go back 12 years to when we were back in college. But yeah, it was unfathomable. I mean, honestly, we could not have even wrapped our minds around. it partly because that world didn't really exist, right? I think kids now, your kids probably

even grow up in one of their, you know, top things, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I want to be a YouTuber. Because that's a thing. And it was not a thing when we were growing up, and it was barely a thing at all when we were, you know, end the beginning stages of dude perfect. Yeah, by the way, thanks for that. Now, and every time I ask my kids, would you want to be. I want to be the present. Like, I want to be a YouTuber. So appreciate it. We have to apologize for that. And we didn't start water bottle flipping, but we definitely help. helped make it kind of a thing. So we apologize to teachers for that all the time. I'm sure that's, you know, endlessly frustrating to them. Yeah. How much, for both of you, Tyler and Corey,

how much of your success do you attribute to how hard you worked and just the grind? And how much do you think it has to do with luck? We are perfectionists, right? We all are. And we are all willing to put in that extra effort and whatever piece of the process you can imagine. I mean, just the other day, as an example, we launched a new book recently. And so we did. kind of a contest giveaway and we did this big film project in order to make it happen. And we put a lot of time and effort into it and we edited it. And we looked at it and we said, I don't like the way it looks. Like it's okay.

No one would really bat an eye at it, but that's not the vision that we had. And we went and we redid the whole thing, right? So that's just so classic dude perfect. We have this bar that I think is a lot higher than what most people imagine it would be, at least online. So on the hard work side, I mean, I'm not going to lie. Like we, you know, we try hard, we take it seriously. It's the most fun thing ever.

So we don't take it too seriously, but we take the opportunity that we have with it seriously. And, you know, if we can spread a little bit of hope and joy in that sense, that's a huge win. How about you, Tyler? I mean, there's no question that we've all put in a lot of work, but I think we would still be putting in that work. I mean, I was putting in that work when I was doing landscaping. Our personalities have always been, like, the way we were raised is, you know, you've got to work for, for something. It's not just going to be handed to you. And so I think we tend to look at it, maybe not so much of luck, but

more so that God has kind of blessed us with this platform for a reason. And even if it's just as simple as providing content for families to sit down and watch together, I think we hope at minimum, like that's what we can provide for people. And I don't tend to look at it as luck, but I think it's been a huge blessing to be able to have a platform like I mean, it would be a waste if at the end of this, it was like, oh, okay, well, we made some funny videos on this website called YouTube that may or may not be around in 50 years.

And I think we all hope that there's a little bit more meaning and a little bit more purpose behind Dude Perfect than that when this is all said and done. That's Tyler Tony and Corey Cotton. Two of the five co-founders are Dude Perfect. Oh, and by the way, I think we may have forgotten to ask just one more. critical question? Bram, you want to take this one? Yeah. Have you ever scored

an incredible trick shot, but it turns out you weren't recording? We have. So I was like, hey, let me go to the front yard and see if I can make this shot over the house into the backyard. And I was like, I'm just going to go practice it and throw a few. And I ended up making it, and we were not filming. And so we decided, rule number one of trick shots, you're either filming or you're not filming. And I have a last question. was that trick shop?

Daddy has to do his job. Daddy has to do his job. Dad's going to be out of a job soon, sounds like. Do you want to see bye? Bye. All right. See you, boys. Thanks for the question.

You have a good day. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're not yet a subscriber, please do subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is hibt at npr.org. If you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at How I Built This or mine is at Guy Raz. On Instagram, we're at How I Built This NPR, or mine is at guy.com. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Claire Murashima. Our production staff includes Casey Herman, Rachel Fockner,

James Delahousie, Julia Carney, Elaine Coates, Farah Safari, Liz Metzker, Annalise Ober, and Harrison B.J. Choi. Jeff Rogers is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz. and you've been listening to how I built this. This is NPR.