The Startup Ideas Podcast - Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]

Starting point is 00:00:00 I interviewed Orrin Meets World. This guy has worked with everyone from Red Bull to Sorok, you name it. But that's not why he's interesting. He's interesting because he has nailed TikTok. And he has nailed how to create content that spreads to millions of people. TikTok shop, I didn't know much about it. He taught me and he's going to teach you enjoy this episode. All right. New character unlocked. Orin, the internet's creative director. Welcome. Man, I'm excited to be here. Let's rip some ideas. Okay, I want to run.

Starting point is 00:00:56 This is a startup ideas podcast. So I'm going to run an idea by you. Anyone could take it. You can take it for all I care. And I want to workshop it and just get into your brain to see how you would take this idea and turn it into a cult brand. You with me? That's roll. So here's the idea.

Starting point is 00:01:18 I have a iPhone case. It's kind of actually kind of falling. apart. It's just black. It's not that interesting. I will say, I used to just have no iPhone case, and I would crack it and crack it and crack it. So I've, I've given up, you know, for the people in the comment section who are going to be like, oh, you know, I can't believe he has an iPhone case. Can't believe he's one of those people. Like, I've given up on it. You know, it's, so you feel me on that? Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to hold up, I was going to take my phone out of its case because I adopted the case

Starting point is 00:01:48 purely because it's been absolutely destroyed in the same way. I just got to stop doing it. And so I'm in the same exact boat, brother. Dude, once you hit like, I don't know, late 20s, early 30s, you're just like, I can't do it anymore. As soon as kids are involved, man. Phone's breaking no matter what.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Exactly. So the idea is, how can you make the case a little more fun? And like a lot of us, you know, I'm into collectibles. And I was thinking, oh, wouldn't it be cool? if you can have a case. And in the back of the case, there'd be like a holographic Charzard. So it's basically marrying a collectible with the case. And you're able to make a premium on it because obviously, let's say you're buying. Okay, Charzar is probably a bad example because there's

Starting point is 00:02:37 some charisards that go for like $30,000. But there are like, I don't know, maybe it's a squirtle or something like that, which you can put in, buy it for $20. It costs you $5 to make the case and you sell for $75. What do you think? Definitely intrigued. It is funny. You mentioned up, I have an influencer iPhone case. I don't know, for lack of a better term.

Starting point is 00:02:58 I have a, this is from Maximize. I don't know if you've seen his, his videos, his weapon of mass distraction. I'm a believer in the van of the iPhone case. And I'm also, the place where I work is we do websites and that includes the road, the road website who did that, the viral, the case that has lipstick. Look, I would immediately take that and be looking at, all right, you have the IPI angle. It's a great angle. But I think the utility angle is still the best angle to take for anything that's going on the

Starting point is 00:03:28 internet, right? Because people are more likely to save and share something with utility than they think is cool because we are so inundated with cool stuff. And that is just my general take of like where we are right now in the zeitgeist. And so I'd be looking at, okay, what can we take within the Charzard world that like makes this useful, right? Can we slap? Is it, can we make like the back case big enough to put?

Starting point is 00:03:47 a full pack of cards in or whatever that is. You can hold your deck or whatever that would be that we would tie into what that experience looks like. Or what else are like the youth really, really into that could make for like a funny potentially viral, viral case to tell the brand story. One, just because I have a bunch of cologne is really popular right now. And so I've been sent to all this influencer cologne that I'm never going to wear and I have like 20 of them in front of me. But that's a thing, right? Kids right now, young men especially are building like their perfume bar. It's like a thing that's happening on. online. So I'd be like, all right, cool, how can I, like, if they want to carry that with them

Starting point is 00:04:20 throughout the day, like, what's the iPhone case that allows me to hold four of those that has the royalty with, you know, whatever, you know, Cologne Somalié, they're following on the internet. So, yeah, I would basically be attaching utility to that that has virality and storytelling. I think any of those could then have, you have a hundred videos that spawned from that. You can repeat those videos whenever, like, some new exclusivity drops. And then you're, you're on your way to, uh, to establishing your cult. So my initial reaction to that is, well, if you're building a luxury product, which this is, do you need to have utility? That was my initial reaction. And then you started talking about the colognes, which by the way, I had no idea that

Starting point is 00:04:54 Cologne is like, you know, popular right now. The youth are in a shocking place right now, but we'll get there. Exactly. We can unpack that later in the video. So what you're kind of saying is, you know, utility doesn't need to be like your standard utility around just covering covering the phone, but it could mean like, how do you put utility and marry that to what's happening in the cultural is like, is that what you're saying? Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Because I think your luxury point is actually an interesting one. And I spend a lot of my background is in like the conversation around luxury and higher end and items that sell for a premium price point. And so like the concept of luxury

Starting point is 00:05:30 is really important for people with ideas to understand is there's basically like luxury is inherently rooted in craft, right? People buy the Hermes saddle or whatever it is because of the quality level with which has been sustained over a period of time. And then the desire that comes from people, you know, wanting to attain the ability to acquire that quality level. So luxury is inherently rooted in craft. And since in iPhone case, I don't know how much craft you can apply to that. We've already seen the carbon fiber cases and rare python leather or whatever. It doesn't really change my experience.

Starting point is 00:05:55 But then one level down from that, we have what I call designer products, right, where the design differentiates it. You can charge a premium because the design is so cool or so interesting. And a good example of that is, I don't know if you've seen those metal cases that are like two pieces, but it's like a little metal, like almost like liquid metal looking thing that goes on top and the bottom. They advertise on Instagram a lot. That's a designer case, right?

Starting point is 00:06:12 you're charging a premium for someone's really unique design. You could say the same thing about, like, say, this more hype beasty concept where it's like, oh, you get your Charzard or it's a, you know, it's a Travis Scott case or whatever it is, could fall in that category. But really, where luxury is at its pinnacle is that combination of utility and craft, right? Where you're able to say, like a perfume experience, depending on what, oh, you have, etc., can be a luxury experience. And if you marry that with, you know, all the utility that comes from it, like the craft

Starting point is 00:06:39 and the story of it, you're kind of reaching, reaching that pinnacle. So I think that's what we would be trying to do here. And now I'm leaning into the idea of the clone case, right? Like, let's get it so it could have four or six of those testers. Let's launch it with like an exclusive with, you know, with with YSL or whoever is going to give us the four tester set that fits right within it. We're going to go, we're going to go MRR because you're going to get four to six sent to you on a quarterly basis and you can sign up based on your sent profile.

Starting point is 00:07:04 And then you can share the sent profiles with your friends via the app, obviously, which has its other like inherently social value. And then you can get your, your pheromone ratio, you know, through the wearable, right, we're going too far.

Starting point is 00:07:16 Shh, don't tell anyone, but I've got 30 plus startup ideas that could make you millions. And I'm giving them away for free. These aren't just random guesses. They're validated concepts from entrepreneurs

Starting point is 00:07:32 who've built $100 million dollars plus businesses. I've compiled them into a one simple database. Compiled from hundreds of conversations I've had on my podcast. But the main thing is, most of these ideas don't need a single investor. Some cost nothing to start. I'm pretty much handing you a cheat cheat.

Starting point is 00:07:57 The idea bank is your startup shortcut. Just click below to get access. Your next cash-loving business is waiting for you. Well, you know what's cool about this idea is when you think, of, okay, what's that brand? It's a men's clone. I almost bought it, and then I looked at the price, and it was like $250 for a clone.

Starting point is 00:08:20 There's one, I think it starts with a C. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm not sure. What's the? Cree or? You know, I have only gotten back into Cologne because I have, it came up so often in this. I did this, like, I do these, like, reports for, like,

Starting point is 00:08:35 retail groups and stuff like that where it's like, what's trending? And so I ended up doing like these focus groups of Gen Z all the time, and the perfume thing can. came up and then I was started to say, I always used to say no to the influencer seating on perfume and now I take them all because, yeah, it's a, it's a whole thing. So I, but I'm not like super savvy as to what brands are popping right now. I got it. I got it. I was close. I called it Cree, but it was really creed. And I just like the first link that came up is it, it's a 12,

Starting point is 00:09:01 creed, $1, 260 for, I don't know, like 12. It's like the, it's like the La Mare of Cologne. Let's go. Yeah, exactly. So, Listen, if you're going to, I don't care how wealthy you are. If you're taking one sprits of that creed, you're hoping that someone's like, wait, is that a, is that a, is that a, oh, do, you know, Adventus, you know, that's, but that's the problem with Cologne is, there's no easy way to share the status of your Cologne. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because you do want to, let's go back to marketing from utility. So a friend of mine has a TikTok shop that's smashing it where he sells Cologne. And he sells a Cologne called Her Loss, named after the Drake. And it is a pheromone Cologne because he's playing on it's $130 or $95 or whatever it is. Or I guess we're down to 80 on Amazon. And they're playing into that idea that, you know, there is a chemical attraction element to what Cologne can do for you.

Starting point is 00:10:05 And that is a perfect scenario for the TikTok shop. I think it's, you know, because people aren't going to notice what that whiff is, and no one's going to recognize the Creed scent. I think, you know, if you really want to make something in that niche and you don't have the infinite marketing budget, apparently, Creed has, then you have to go back to a good old-fashioned chemical utility, whether it works or not. How do you look at a TikTok shop and see how much revenue they are doing? So, yeah, so basically you can click into the core store.

Starting point is 00:10:34 So basically, you'll see the hard part about this is that all these people have, like, 50 accounts now. but if you go to the core one that has the store on it and click over into shop, the individual items will have at how many units sold on there behind them. And so your buddy, you know, I don't know if you can say, but like, what ballpark is he doing in revenue? He's pretty, his handle, he's pretty open about it. But they're doing a couple of hundredk a month just in the cologne. Like he's on Instagram talking all about that, you know, full, full guru life.

Starting point is 00:10:59 So yeah, so I think they're doing really well on that. Well, I think, look, the alpha there for the ideas podcast is that like there's a young demographic online that are discovering these experiences for the first time. Cologne, right? And there's a ton of influencer videos on Cologne. If you see these, these guys have these like Cologne collections. So there's all these influencers have like 50 and then they'll pull the bottle out like really close in front of the camera, like a macro shot, some ornate, like a good example. The John Barvados bottles are great examples. I'm like or an innate crazy bottle. And then they'll take the width and they'll be like talking about it or whatever. And there's all these, you know, when we were supposed to

Starting point is 00:11:26 Colon, whenever we were growing up, like, I don't know, it's like whatever my dad had or like some stuff I saw in a magazine ad, right? And this is, they're getting exposed to it through these insane people on it on TikTok. And then they're going, hey, I want to start my own journey. What does that look like? But guess what? If you watch a video on Cologne on Instagram, you're going to get shown more videos about Cologne on Instagram.

Starting point is 00:11:42 And then if it's a TikTok shop video where someone's actually purchasing product occurring from it, Instagram's waiting that super heavily in the Cologne algorithm. So basically as soon as you start down that rabbit hole, you're getting hit with her loss, right? Or with my boy's product. And who's hijacking that consumer journey. Who's saying, yeah, instead of finding it another way, a native TikTok shop brand is taking advantage of that opportunity inside culture.

Starting point is 00:12:03 And that is a really interesting concept to me. And who else is, because I'm fascinated, and I think a lot of people are fascinated with TikTok Shop. So, like, how do you build a business on TikTok Shop? And who's doing it well? Like, what, what, uh, are you following goalie at all? No, tell me about it. All right.

Starting point is 00:12:22 So TikTok Shop is a scale game. This is the thing that breaks most CMO's brains right now. Is everyone, back for our com about one TikTok account, whatever they started off the account with, is that is TikTok is a game of affiliates, right? So basically other people that create content for your brand to then, and they link your product and they get a percentage of that sale. Most of them are also on retainer. So for instance, I ran TikTok shop at this brand.

Starting point is 00:12:43 I was a CMO. Previously, we had a toy brand. We had five or six creators that were on monthly retainer, 1,500 to 2,500 bucks. This is very typical. Bigger brands will build this up to 50 creators, 100 creators. They are thirsting for creators to be able to do this because it's a lucrative system. For that 1,2,2,500 bucks a month, they make, let's say, 15 to 20 videos. sometimes more that are about that.

Starting point is 00:13:03 And there's software doing it too, not related to shop, separate combo. And if those videos go well, people buy product from them on TikTok shop. That creator gets a percentage that goes in their bank account. That's why you see all these kids now. There's a lot of kids age 20 to 25 who are in these discords like the collective and stuff like that. Or I think they just changed their name. It's called your first dollar where they are making 10, 15 grand a month, 25 grand a month

Starting point is 00:13:23 off these commissions, flaunting that on the internet because of course that's what we do now, but like actually making good money. And like that is a really interesting opportunity because they're doing it of like affiliate sales. But the thing is there's no limit to the scale of that currently because TikTok is so wide. And we all look at creators differently, right? When I was first making content, I was at like 100K. I noticed someone was jacking my content. Someone was copying my videos word for word. And they had like 40,000 followers. I was like, oh man. But they, I went and looked at the account. They look different than me, different race, general, different overall vibe.

Starting point is 00:13:54 Completely different follower base. Almost no overlap to my follower base. And that's like the important concept to understand is that everyone's TikTok algorithm is different. They want to see different people. They have different interests. They have different niece. And then the tam of that is like ludicrously wide. So if you look at a TikTok shop brand, you go, if I'm goalie, it's like a gummy brand. Okay, every single person on the earth is my tam for this, right? And I also sell this on Amazon.

Starting point is 00:14:16 So I'm going to have young creators of every gender, race, overall vibe content type. I'm going to have middle age creators, older creators. I want to cover as many as I can as long as I can make the math work from an affiliate perspective, that they get 20% of the sale. I get the other money off TikTok shop. I have a certain splashover into Amazon and now TikTok and Amazon are becoming one for that fulfillment.

Starting point is 00:14:36 That is the size of the opportunity. And you'll see why I bring up goalie from the start is their incentive package for affiliates going into Q4 is insane. What I mean by incentive package is basically if you generate enough GMV, like the market value of sales there, it's like Rolex, Lamborghini,

Starting point is 00:14:50 a condo in Miami, night at Amangiri. Like that's the level which we're talking about for these kids. And that's the promoted program they have. And that's how far these big TikTok shop brands are from where these legacy brands can't move on there are as like and the arbitrage is crazy dude i actually i actually love you i i i

Starting point is 00:15:08 we have to unpack all of that because i feel like there's to you that's completely uh of course this is happening you know in my world though i'm like in the software world so i don't like think about these things you mentioned something at discord i think you called it uh yeah it's called your first dollar used to be called the collective but that's like where all the kids go and get trained and then brand's going like recruiting there. Explain exactly what it is. Yeah. So if I'm so like if I was, if I was 19 right now, I worked at chickfilet when I was 19 and I worked at Abercrombie. I got fire from Abercrombie. I worked at Chick-fil-A. Long story. That sucked, right? So if I, say I say I'm online, I'm like these kids are making money on TikTok shop. How do I do it? So there's a discord channel

Starting point is 00:15:47 where they teach kids how to make videos. Basically like how to use Capca, TikTok editor. What's a good hook? What's a good whatever? And so kids will go on. They'll pay, I think it's like 15 bucks a week or something like light to go say, all right, cool, do I want to do this? I want to learn how to make videos. And then brands will post opportunities. Like, hey, these brands want 20 videos for TikTok shop. So I recruited off of that when I worked at this toy company. I was like, cool, I need a creator in the UK because regional is big in TikTok too.

Starting point is 00:16:08 I need a creator in Germany. I need a creator who does Spanish. We recruited off of there. Pay these kids X amount for the videos. They get X amount of the TikTok shop revenue. They've already been trained. You can see some of the content they're doing or they're brand new and you're giving them a shot for a lesser rate.

Starting point is 00:16:19 And then brands will come in there kind of with deals and recruiting at the same size. So they kind of have a two-tiered system. But that's what kids who want to do that. They have to go figure out how they do that somewhere. So either you take a course, but course is like the wrong framework for anything now, right? It's like course and community. Much rather you'd have the Discord where people like me are hopping in there like give me a couple of youth to go make videos about whatever.

Starting point is 00:16:37 I have a budget. And so all that kind of happens in one place. And that's one of like 10 discords where this is happening. Insane that that exists because, you know, I did a tweet the other day about, you know, if you were going to create the YC of today in a world where software is commoditized, it's all about distribution. what does the YC for creators look like? And I feel like it's kind of this, right?

Starting point is 00:17:01 Yeah, well, also I look at, I mean, honestly, so my last, before I hopped on this podcast, I was giving a talk to YC about content for software. And so a quick note on that is the same thing's happening in software, right? So if you look at, um, air buds, you look at, I think the other one is like, is humane. Humane's like the mental health one. There's Jenny.

Starting point is 00:17:20 There's GG dating. Gigi is a good one. There's Trip BFF. The software that said, hey, content market fit is as important as product market fit, but they're using 50 creators. Like I think AirBuds definitely has has 50. You know, GGS has four or five accounts, maybe two or three creators, but even like, like ladder has like 30 trainers on their fitness app that are creators. So they're applying the same theory. They just don't have the unit economics that TikTok shop does.

Starting point is 00:17:40 TikTok shock is great because there's a get rich dynamic that is that is material, but you can literally calculate out the way you calculate like meta ads, Roas and like be in the mix of that's amazing. Software you have to like look at it's much more, it's a little more intangible. But that's literally happening. But also you look at like to your point about the creator why I see, like, I run this program called Cut 30. We have 100, 150 people in it every, every time we do it. It's like every six weeks that teach people how to be content creators. And the hit rate's crazy. Like the group chat of the people, we have a group chat of people that like really pop off going from there. And it's like 16, 18 people who have become like hundreds of thousands of

Starting point is 00:18:11 followers, right? And like, we're not the only one. There's other people that are doing that. But like, all this is happening in these closet communities. The only people to know about that. I don't like go run a million ads about that or talk about it every day. It's just people that like have gone down funnel enough to even get promoted to. Same thing with a collective. they're not splashing that on the front page. A bunch of us aren't tweeting about it, but it happens in the background. And that's where I feel like entrepreneurs and CMOs get left out

Starting point is 00:18:31 is because if you can't find a way to be visible into the world that's happening around you and into the trends that are around you, you're literally just getting left behind. Just to finish on the TikTok thing, what else do people need to know about building on TikTok, starting a business on TikTok? It's an operational nightmare.

Starting point is 00:18:51 The hardest part about that is dealing with TikTok and your inventory being in there and not. So like I mentioned I was at a toy brand with this beforehand. We were getting, we got shut down on TikTok shop so much that we basically stopped. We had a product that was on the edge of compliance. There's a reason for that. But basically, there's just so many logistics around shipping and customer service and compliance and violations and strikes that's like all automated by TikTok that you have to be, you need to have an uniquely insane and process driven operational person who is dedicated to that to work through the scale. But if you are, it's likely

Starting point is 00:19:19 worth that on the other end, especially if you are, have a good Amazon business because the crossover is huge. And if you're walking into a retail conversation, something I like to call out is I worked with this water brand called chlorophy water where he was really early on TikTok, the founder, seeded out a ton of product on TikTok when he launched. We had this whole SEO strategy we put together. But yeah, there was something like a billion views on the chlorophy water hashtag when he launched. And he walked that right into retail and was like, look at the demand for my product. And it is, but this is not a product that is consumed online. People don't buy cases of water or single water. It's a product that's consumed in retail. And like, guess how those retail conversations?

Starting point is 00:19:53 went, right? Of course, they want to take advantage of what that, of that arbitrage, right? We want to be the person that has that availability. That's still a conversation. Like, we talk about TikTok shop. There's the crossover to Amazon and the crossover of natural retail because of how much discovery and entertainment happens on that platform today. Damn, dude. Like that, I do feel, and maybe other people listening, the whole like supply chain just feels like a black box. Like, I don't even know where to start. On terms of like making a product? Yeah, in terms of making a product. So I would go to like, if you know, kind of, if you have a general idea, but you want to go

Starting point is 00:20:28 into the belly of the beast, then I would go to Canton Fair. It's twice a year. It's in China. I know it sounds like something that would be a wild thing to do, but it is a literally like, it's like the mecca for where things are created. And that includes everything. Food, you know, like jewelry, electronics, like whatever it is, food may say slightly less. But let's say if you wanted to get into the supplements game.

Starting point is 00:20:47 There's that as a network of other more specific. Like you want to do gummies, you want to do stuff made in the U.S. wherever. There's a bunch of like trade shows related to that. but like Canton fair is where everything in the world is made. Like all the factories that make everything in the world go to to display their wares. And the Western world is kind of come and adopted. And there's enough understanding that you have to deal with people that speak English when you're there.

Starting point is 00:21:02 And that's where people go to find their factories and experience supply chain for the first time. Obviously, if you don't want to go all the way over to China, if you do go there, you're going to get the best rates. You're going to actually see people's operations. You're going to see all the available options. If you don't do that, like, I don't know, the reason, there's a reason that Alibaba founders are so rich, right? Like between Alibaba and Pietra, you basically have access to factories of any kind to make anything you want, basically anywhere in the world, like, or you can hunt them down individually. I just feel like to me, like the product creation part is fully antiquated right now.

Starting point is 00:21:28 It's actually so easy to use Alibaba or go talk now through WeChat or with translation or the amount of Chinese people that speak English or to anywhere in the world to make something that really comes down to more of like distribution of ideas being more important than the creation of them. What sort of software tools do you use to come up with ideas, figure out supply chain, competitive analysis? Like, what's your content creation? What are the things that people probably need to look into?

Starting point is 00:21:58 There's a whole bunch of them. But I would say, like, yeah, so like e-commerce, like particles, interesting on e-commerce because you can basically look at any brands like Shopify data over time and store data over time. And so that's a good one to be like, how much do people do promotions? What colors do they sell the most of? How much do they really sell of X units or Y? Then there's the more traditional ones like Amazon ones, like Echalium 10 and things like that.

Starting point is 00:22:22 there is a really specific one for TikTok shop that my brain is short-circuiting on right now, but I'll find that one before the end of it. But like I manage my entire life in Notion in these like databases where basically every project has like the supply chain is all is all tracked in there. And Notion's great because it's also functional in China. So people can update their statuses and stuff and like that. But basically every project is tracked in terms of like where things are in production and target dates.

Starting point is 00:22:48 Content roadmap is populated by where product roadmap ends on like on a separate a separate doc. But it is interesting. The creative workflow is the one that's most interesting to talk about because we have CRM, we have ERP, but creative teams, like there's so many briefs and so much content being created now by these teams. And there's really no good way to track it.

Starting point is 00:23:05 Everyone's using these ultra-complex notion slack combos. And there's not like a dedicated creative platform for that. And it's moving so fast that by the time anyone creates it, it's probably going to be iterated the way. But anyway, software opportunity for people. All right. So, yeah, so the TikTok app, the name alludes me at the moment. Just my brain is short-circuiting.

Starting point is 00:23:22 basically it shows you creators and how much market value they're doing, so how much sales are actually making. And then that's, and then basically also you can go explore products and categories in a similar way, which allows you to then formulate a strategy to go DM creators, do outreach. And that's the gate that everyone has, right? It's finding more people actually getting them to want to do something with your product and like getting that relationship and following up is definitely the hardest part of that right now. Quick ad break. Let me tell you about a business I invested in. It's called boringmarketing.com. So a few years ago, I met this group of people that were some of the best SEO experts in the world.

Starting point is 00:23:57 They were behind getting some of the biggest companies found on Google. And the secret sauce is they've got a set of technology and AI. I could help you outrank your competition. So for my own businesses, I wanted that. I didn't want to have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't want to depend on ads to drive customers to my businesses. I wanted to rank high in Google. That's why I like,

Starting point is 00:24:22 SEO and that's why I use Boringmarketing.com and that's why I invested in it. They're so confident in their approach that they offer a 30-day sprint with 100% money-back guarantee. Who does that nowadays? So check it out. Highly recommend Boringmarketing.com. And so we've talked a lot about TikTok, but YouTube, do you do any sort of competitive analysis on YouTube or you just don't really touch it? I mean, I still don't think as a platform, I'm excited about the features they're putting in for products. Like I've tagged a bunch of my own products inside my YouTube channel, things like that, haven't seen like big sales left or anything. I do not think of that as a platform for brands besides very mainstream CPG brands,

Starting point is 00:24:58 like that Kampai foods. Like candy brands a perfect brand for YouTube for YouTube shorts. But I think YouTube, when I talk about the algorithms, like TikTok is extremely good at giving you very specific things. It can zone in on like when I was in China, it was showing me content of other Americans like in China. Like the level of which that they are good at being able to do is actually shocking. even though it's like on a VPN.

Starting point is 00:25:23 But then with YouTube, it's so mainstream. The content that succeeds has to be like painfully mainstream, on shorts at least. So if you are a niche product, you have less of a chance of reaching your audience there. But you have a product with wide appeal and you have a viral format. You have a lot of opportunity for success. But I still don't think of that as a YouTube as a primary sales driver for most businesses. Wow, that's a hot take, dude. I appreciate that.

Starting point is 00:25:45 Yeah, that's a really hot take. I mean, like, first of all, the interesting thing is you don't even, you don't even mention long form. Yeah, well, Longform is a brand builder for brands to be able to put out there. And obviously there's influencers that put a bunch of that like inside their content to build it. But when you look at a like a tactical, useful strategy with arbitrage that you can then compare to, you can come at from a numbers perspective, the way you come at advertising. I look at short form like and especially what's happening on TikTok, like way more specifically quantifiable, actionable, scalable, scalable organically than than YouTube is more of a like a slower, more marauding, more brand focused game. Not that that's a bad thing for brands, but I think the opportunity with organic virality on short form is generational.

Starting point is 00:26:29 And before we leave, I have to ask you, because you're the goad at this, besides format, if you're trying to create a TikTok audience, you're trying to create content that's going to land with people, how do you do it? So this is a good one. There's a couple things, like, to core macro level, there's three types of content, right? that drives value and not just like I have three tips like value that someone wants to bookmark or share like my content works so well because I get shared in Slack channels of companies small and large every day thousands of times because I make content specifically for that. I want my content to get I want some I want your director to drop it in the Slack channel. I'll be like, why aren't we doing this or I want a creative person to be like sending it to their creative team?

Starting point is 00:27:12 I want to do this. So value that is safeable and shareable either does that or it entertains. It replaces Netflix and the TV experience or it fails. Those are your three options for content, right? And what happens is so many people fall on that third bucket because they go say, I'm going to talk about my brand story or I'm going to talk about what my product does that's cool. And no one cares. And even if you're an established brand, while a lot of their content isn't good is that they don't care. But if you take that same lens, I'm going to talk about that and I'm going to saveable, shareable value, or I'm going to entertain in such a way that people are consuming it in replacement of entertainment. That's where you can succeed on short form. So if you're an expert, you're trying to build

Starting point is 00:27:45 your following or do the kind of thing I've done on there, I'd be laser focused on telling stories about things, People don't care just about facts. They care about facts in context of stories that are that are also playbooks that enable people to act. If you are an expert in any field from fitness to branding to e-commerce to, you know, whatever, your cardiologist. Like that is the format for which you to succeed. Beautiful. I appreciate my man. Where could people get to know the internet's creative director more?

Starting point is 00:28:15 Yeah. I'm at Orrin Meets World, O'R-E-N-Meets World on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. YouTube is my favorite personal platform at the moment. I may not drive the brand value. So you can come check out the long forum on there. I have a newsletter called Hyper that is in my link bios on all there, where we talk specifically about brand strategy and creative direction. That is a worthwhile read.

Starting point is 00:28:34 So appreciate you having me. Anytime, my man. Come back soon.

The Startup Ideas Podcast - Learn how to win on the internet in 28 min [tiktok shop, trends, building cult brands]

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