How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Pokimane

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Imane Anys—who goes by the online moniker Pokimane—is the leading female streamer on Twitch, a popular streaming platform for gamers. Pokimane spoke with Guy about garnering more than 20 million followers across several platforms, and how internet personalities can operate their brands like traditional businesses. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times. Pre-order the How I Built This book at: https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee 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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So I've never asked you for much. This show is free and we think about it as kind of like a free MBA program. Each week we bring you the stories of failure, triumph, pivots, strategic. challenges, mishaps, and problem solving from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. And it's all free and always will be. But now I'm asking you to consider buying my new book based on this show. It's called How I Built This, and it only costs about 20 bucks. And this book is designed for anyone who's thinking of building something or just wants to be inspired by people who have built some of the most iconic companies and brands on earth. And if you pre-order it now,

like in the next few days, I will send you a free signed bookplate. So please go to How I Built This.com or Guy Raz.com to order the book and get your free signed bookplate. Hello everyone and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition. On these episodes, as you know, we're talking with entrepreneurs and other leaders about how they're adapting during this economic crisis. And today, my guest is Iman Anise, who is better known as Pokeyman, the number one. one female streamer on Twitch. Pokemon started playing video games when she was 12, but it was mainly a hobby until she joined Twitch, which is a popular streaming platform for gamers.

As her following grew and grew, she eventually decided to leave college and pursue online gaming full time. And with more than 20 million followers across several platforms and a makeup and clothing line, Pokemon has proven that the gaming industry is ripe for. for entrepreneurs like herself. All right, so for people who don't know what video game streaming is, can you first just kind of explain how it works? Sure.

So for starters, I'm sure most of you guys have at least seen a YouTube video. Basically, live streaming is like watching a YouTube video, except the video is live. And it goes on typically for much longer than a video, typically a few hours, actually. So you can tune in at any point, and you can catch a live broadcast, you can chat with other people that are watching the same thing as you at the same time. So it has a lot to do with interaction, both between you and the broadcaster and you and other viewers.

And the other way I'd explain it specifically, I guess, the video game aspect. And a comparison that is made very frequently is in the same way you watch professional sports, you would perhaps watch a professional gamer, or sometimes you watch people for entertainment. Yeah, you just watch people do things you also enjoy. Yeah, and so I guess, like, just a few years ago, you were a college student in Canada, you were a chemical engineering major. How did you get into video game streaming? So I started playing video games at a very, very young age. I always saw my brother playing them.

So, you know, as a younger sibling, I wanted to do whatever the older sibling was doing. And I kind of continued playing all throughout high school. And I got really into this one game, League of Legends, in high school. and I heard about Twitch and Twitch streaming because I was already in this gaming community my friends would link me different streamers and I thought it was such a cool thing to do I just looked at it and I was like wow I wish I was in their place

I wish I could do that and by the end of senior year in high school I was able to save up some money and buy a secondhand PC I begged my parents to upgrade the internet and I started streaming just on the side every now and then for fun. And solely as the months went on, my stream started gaining traction and growing. But I was always so set on taking the educational route and doing my degree, maybe getting a PhD or a doctorate

or whatever it is. That was always kind of the path that I thought I would take. So I went to college or university, studied chemical engineering. And then during my second year, I kind of realized that I would either have to give up engineering or take time off of school because it had gotten to a point where there was just no way for me to balance both. And I also felt really bad not being able to give my all both to my studies and seeing how good of grades I could get or how well I could apply myself. And also not giving my all to streaming and seeing how much I could grow my community or my online presence. So just to understand how this worked, I mean, you basically create a profile on Twitch or what. one of these platforms, which is free, and you were playing games. And then slowly people just started to follow you and watch you play. And then it kind of just grew organically.

Yeah. So there are a lot of different ways that you can kind of gain traction on Twitch or any social media or any platform. For me personally, I think it was a lot of networking. Some of my viewers would mention my stream to other streamers. And then I'd make friends that way. So it had quite a bit to do with networking and a lot to do with just organic growth and a bit to do with intentional marketing, like being a part of Facebook groups for the kind of games that I like and things like that. Wow. So this was a real hustle. It wasn't just like sitting back and waiting for people to kind of follow you. You actually really worked it. I mean, you kind of networked. You talk to other streamers. You tried to kind of get people to talk about your stream. And that's

how more and more people found out about you. Did your passion for video games just, was it just something that you kind of naturally and intuitively just love, just connected with? Mm-hmm. So much of my childhood revolved around not just games, but I think a really particular aspect of playing online games is the community part of it all. I remember being 12 and making online friends and knowing I can't say my full name online,

but just trying to find a place where you belong, which ultimately I think everybody in life is doing. And I really feel like that's what online communities gave me. And being able to make friends from all corners of the world and finding people you connect to, I think that was really a big part of why I loved gaming and stuck with it for so long. So I got really lucky with my brother introducing me at such a young age. So basically you're in college and you're starting to amass this following of people who want to connect with you and watch you play. And you realize that you can't actually be a.

college student and also a streamer because you're devoting so much of your time streaming. Well, actually, it was just that as the years go on, obviously, in an engineering degree, the classes are bound to get more difficult and more time-consuming. So I just knew I quite physically would not be able to maintain a streaming schedule as well as go to all my classes and pass all my classes. Luckily, this kind of coincided with a time where streaming, I had always seen it as a really fun hobby and something that I could make side hustle money through, but I didn't really look at it as a full-blown career because I wasn't making much money off of it. But around that time,

sponsors and companies started entering the space. And they started sponsoring streamers like me. So for example, they would just say, okay, for $2,000 a month, you just need to put our company logo and branding on your stream. You need to use these products this many amount of times. And yeah, more and more companies started entering the space in this capacity. And also agencies and management groups started joining the streaming space so that they could facilitate these deals. And that's when I could really see it developing into a true business and realizing, wait, this is something that I could maybe someday turn into a full-fledged career. So you left college and you decide, I'm going to turn this into a career and a business. And you have.

I mean, you actually, this is now a big business. I mean, you've got, I think, like, five and a half million followers on Twitch, but across your social media channels and YouTube, you've got like 20 million, 20 million followers. It's just unbelievable. It really is. I don't even believe it. Right, like four years ago, you were a college student, and now you're like a major celebrity in the world of gaming. I mean, by the way, do you get recognized on the, I mean, in normal times pre-pandemic when we weren't.

wearing masks, did you get recognized? Yeah. I think ultimately depends where I'm going. But yeah, usually a couple people recognize me, which is always so, you know, sweet and flattering. And most people are extremely nice when they meet you. That is actually a part of going out that I kind of miss. Yeah.

Tell me about what a typical day is like for you. I mean, how many hours a day are you playing games? So a typical day, I probably wake up around nine. and I like to start my stream or my broadcast around 11 or noon. And then I usually stream between four to six hours, but sometimes I'll go up until nine hours, sometimes I'll do 12 hours. It depends if I end up doing something that I really enjoy. Or yeah, sometimes the hours just fly by.

But there are some days where maybe you're not having the best day, and every hour feels like seven hours. and it's kind of hard to truck along, but it is what it is regardless of what industry you're in. And do you take breaks? Is it like four, five, six hours straight? You can take breaks, but you don't really want to take too many breaks because one of the most important things about live streaming. In the same way that when you have a radio hosts, the saying, like, you want no dead air. So you don't want any moments where people would just be sitting there watching your chair. and not hearing anything, not watching anything, not listening to anything.

So, of course, you can take your time, get up, go grab a snack, do whatever. But you just have to be mindful of how often you do that and in what way you do that and whether you leave anything entertaining for your viewers to do. You moved to L.A. from Canada to really pursue this business. And let's kind of dig into it a little bit. I mean, you have editors, you've got a manager for your editing team, You've got social media folks, a general manager, business manager. You've got a real team.

So walk me through some of the things you're doing. I mean, obviously you're gaming, you're streaming. And that I'm assuming there's revenue that comes in through sponsorship, mainly that way, right? Yeah. Also, a major part of live streaming is something that we call subscriptions. So on YouTube, you can subscribe for free. And it's almost similar to following a channel. Whereas on Twitch, the site where I live,

live stream. You can follow a channel, so you see when they're live and you see when they're not, but you can also subscribe for a set monthly fee per month. For example, $5, maybe $10, maybe $25. So it's almost like you're pledging that money to that channel in exchange for certain benefits on the channel. Benefits like in the chat, you have like a little icon beside your name, which shows that you're a paying subscriber. You can have little emotes that you use in the chat, and different streamers will have different benefits of their own. Some of them play games with their subscribers. Some of them have subscribers-only chat.

So there's all these different ways of kind of making money within the live-streaming space or the live-streaming website. And then there are an infinite amount of external passive income sources that you can create. Wow. So your revenue stream is super diversified. I mean, you've got sponsorship for what you do. You've got subscribers. and then also you have other products that you're actually, like a makeup brand, for example. Tell me a little bit about that.

So I did do a makeup collaboration with Winky Lux, which basically just involved me and them coming together and creating a few products. So a lip balm, an eye shadow palette where I pick the colors and the formulas and the things that I liked, putting it all together, creating, I guess, like a cohesive look or aesthetic, and then promoting that through my channels. So that's a great way to make income or another way to make income. Basically, when you have an online community of followers, there are so many ways in which you can kind of bring them to different products or try to create value for them in exchange for income.

Yeah, honestly, the possibilities are endless. There are people who create coffee brands. I've also partnered up with a clothing brand that I co-owned now. There's so many things you can do when you have an online audience. I mean, this is so interesting because there's, you know, what entrepreneurship means, it means a million different things, right? And at its core, an entrepreneur is somebody who runs her own business. That's it. And most entrepreneurs in the U.S. and Canada are people who run Etsy shops, one person. It's just one person in their store. But really, I mean, you know, you've kind of developed a business around your brand and your ability to influence people. And do you have brands coming to you saying, hey, we want you to promote this. We want to sponsor you on that. How do you? How do you? you sort of pick and decide who you want to work with? That's actually a really good question. Early on in my career, I felt like I was doing a lot of resume building. Obviously, when I'm in college debt, I'm kind of taking any deal that I think is good or where I enjoy the product and there's no conflicts.

And then I got into a phase where I was making some money, but I knew I wanted to work with larger companies. But in order to do that, I kind of had to almost like build credibility by working with similar brands that maybe aren't as big, even if those sponsorships were perhaps a bit more difficult or I wasn't as interested. I feel like that was the resume building part of my career. Luckily, I've kind of put in the work. I have a name and brand of my own. And so I can be really, really picky and choosy. So I guess the saying I have now is if it's not an F yes, then it's enough. So I kind of just try to work with the companies that I'm really, really excited to work with. When we come back in just a moment,

Pockemain talks about the business of gaming and what she's learned about battling her critics. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to how I built this resilience edition, and I'm speaking with PokeyMaine about some of the difficulties she's faced as one of the biggest streamers on Twitch.

We have a lot of questions coming in. This is from Pamela Stouffer. I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. She asks, What advice do you have for young women who deal with threats and sexist behavior online? I know that you face this. You've borne the brunt of some of this. And you're so nice.

You're so kind. I mean, I just, the idea that somebody would, anyway, how do you deal with it? I mean, for starters, I just want to say sorry and that I really empathize with anyone that is going through something like that. It can be a very, very scary and difficult thing to go through, especially when you're new to an or scene like this, it'll be very off-putting as well. I think one of the biggest pieces of advice that I can give you is to find a community of women that can support you. That has truly been one of my just like absolute saviors. Being able to talk with people who understand what you're going through and empathize and share tips and tricks and really feel protected in that sense helps

tremendously. I don't think I could have gone through the things that I've gone through if it was just me alone and if I didn't have the friends and support system that I had, especially other female streamers. And also to document everything for safety purposes and try to ignore as much as you can. It sucks to say, but a lot of these people really just want your attention. They don't know how else to get it. They don't know how to get it in a positive manner. And so they will go the complete extreme opposite route because typically, obviously people do react when they're scared. Do your best to obviously be as safe as possible. But if you can avoid reacting to these people, that's what I'd recommend as well. How did you build that resilience? I'm curious. You know, I don't have the same kind of

audience you have. And I get very little abuse because how I built this isn't that controversial. But, you know, occasionally we do, I do. And it sucks. You know, it's never fun because you want people to enjoy what you do. You want to make content for people that makes them happy and inspired. How do you stay resilient and strong when you're just getting like pummeled with just meanness? Honestly, it's something that can be very difficult to deal with at times because whether it's a stream or a YouTube channel or a podcast, you kind of want to be creating and dealing with your community, the people that like that. So it's kind of hard to fathom why someone who claims to dislike what you do would berate you with negative comments, right? For starters, I try to just

accept that it's okay for me to feel bad about these things. I need like no emotions to not feel bad when I read some of these messages. Ultimately, yeah, I try to validate my feelings, but also not expose myself to all this feedback too much. I don't think it's healthy for me, someone who probably gets thousands of comments about me to read all of these all the time. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that I should ignore criticism or ignore the negative things that people say, but just to take everything in at an appropriate amount, so it's not overwhelming, either positively or negatively. And also, recently, I read Daring Greatly, and that book was absolutely amazing, especially I related so much to just when she spoke about also receiving so many,

negative comments or hate and someone in her position who's had so much success also say that there will simply be days where it gets to you and where it feels bad and you cry it out but then you just get back up and keep moving and keep creating the things you want to make for the people who want to see them so such great advice a great book daring greatly by bernay brown there's a question from jacks of uh by youtube jacks asks how do you keep a balance between your live streaming career and your personal life you know considering almost everything you do is creating content in some form. Absolutely.

I think things can get very complicated when you are the product that you are selling, basically. That's kind of what being a content creator is like or being an online personality or a public figure. Setting clear guidelines for myself for when I'm working and when I'm not has helped a lot. reflecting on what I want my boundaries to be has been really, really important. I used to struggle a lot with just the sentiment of if someone asks me this specific, very intimate or personal question, what am I going to say? And it feels so overwhelming in that moment of like, oh, I don't know what to do, do I answer, do I not? But if you reflect on these things prior and just kind of tell yourself that it's okay to say, I don't want to talk about these topics, I don't want to talk about this,

and I hope you respect that, everything kind of just deflates. And things that feel like a massive problem can stop to be if you are ready and willing to set those boundaries yourself. Yeah. There's a question. We addressed a little bit of this. How is eCulture going to change pop culture? We've got Logic who's on how I built this and he's a streamer.

And you're going to be in a movie with Ryan Reynolds, I should have mentioned? It's just a cameo. But still, you're in a movie with Ryan Reynolds. It's so cool. It is really cool, yeah. How do you think e-culture is going to change pop culture? It already is, but what do you see happening as we move forward? I think that the two are only going to continue to become more and more intertwined. I see both pop artists and K-pop artists and content creators almost like mixed together in the things that they do,

in the sense that more traditional celebrities are now trying to be on TikTok. They're trying to put their songs and their dances on there. to obviously benefit from the exposure that I can gain and be a part of that community. And people that start off on TikTok are trying to become more traditional celebrities where they want to come out with songs and albums and be on Billboard charts. So those two will just continue to integrate further and further. And it'll all become, in my opinion, a sort of gray area where people will want you to do it all. They'll want you to be all over social media and to do the more traditional outlets.

But ultimately, I just want to remind anyone who goes into any of these spheres or outlets to do what makes you happy. I always thought that the largest amount of success was to go mainstream and then do more traditional things, whether that's movies or songs. But I realized that that area of that industry has its own difficulties and issues in and of itself. So when I think about it, I would much rather stay at home and have full creative control of everything I do and put out the content that I like. to each their own. I want to ask you a question. This is from Stuart Symington. I think the Stewart Simington we know, hello Stewart. He asks, there's been a lot of talk about the challenges of broadening representation and live streaming. You were born in Morocco. It's such a cool story. I mean, do you kind of feel a pressure or be a desire to kind of help lead the way to broadening

representation in live streaming? Absolutely. And when I got into it, I didn't consider any of these things at all. I was just 17-year-old girl having fun playing video games. But now that I recognize my position within the gaming industry, sometimes I do feel a pressure that is a bit difficult, which is to kind of represent a lot of women in gaming. And also, I absolutely want to uplift more women, people of color, LGBTQ. I just want there to be so much diversity in gaming. And one of the biggest reasons why is because to me it's always felt like a place where I can belong just based off of the things that I love, regardless of my gender or anything else. And I want the same thing for everyone else. I feel like it's the perfect thing that anybody can bond over.

This is a question coming in from Facebook from Jose Rodriguez and a question I'm wondering about too. What do you think is the lifespan of this type of business? And if there is, let's say, a medium more short-term lifespan, how do you think about diversifying your business outside of gaming? Because you must be thinking about that. Yeah, it's actually been immensely interesting and fun for me to implement almost all of the things that a regular business would need to to survive long-term and to see all the similarities between being an online content creator and running an actual business, which for starters are things like adaptability.

You have to be able to move and adapt with the trends. If you are really good at one game, and for whatever reason, outside of your control, that game just dies in a year or two, then you wouldn't want your career to die with it. And I'm sure similar things apply to people who are just product developing or producing. Also, diversifying in the same way

that you would want to diversify your streams of income. As a content creator, you have to do the same with your online platforms. That's why you say, oh, you have $5 million on Twitch, but cumulatively you have over 20 million followers. And that's been a very, very intentional thing on my behalf because I know that I can't depend on just one platform for the rest of my life.

If I want security, I need to make sure that I have a viable future on whatever platform will be the most popular one in however many years from now. Yeah. And, I mean, do you think about other products and services that you might come out with, I mean, you know, down the road? Yeah, so actually, that was the reason I got into chemical engineering. I just thought that product development was so cool,

and making something that could provide value for people was really cool. So I know that is ultimately just a huge passion of mine, and I'll probably be creating in some form or other for the rest of my life. Some other areas that I think are really, really interesting. Actually, I would love to someday write a book. I just, I love things that are almost in a sense. more intimate to a person, like things that will mean a lot to them. So whether it's reading something that inspires you or doing something that makes you look

better and feel better about yourself, I find things like that really, really cool and exciting. So cool. Your story is so cool. I love it and I love the business that you built out of this. Pockeman, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. That's an excerpt for my conversation with Iman, Anise, better known as Pokeyman,

To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com slash how I built this. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com slash NPR. This episode was produced by Candice Limb, with help from Will Mitchell, Matt Adams, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, and I'll see you back here in a few days. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.