Over the previous 15 years, sports activities and leisure firm Dude Good—which began as a YouTube channel the place 5 greatest buddies posted movies of trick photographs in several sports activities—has grown right into a media juggernaut with attendant cruises, toy traces, and TV offers. Its content material has expanded to incorporate extremely produced biweekly movies the place they break world information or try challenges—generally, with the assistance of well-known company.
In October, after elevating greater than $100 million from funding agency Highmount Capital, the corporate employed its first CEO, Andrew Yaffe. Yaffe joined the corporate after practically a decade on the NBA the place he ran social, digital, and authentic content material. As he instructed us, “Now we have 60 million followers. The NBA has the biggest following of any of the leagues [with] 20 million followers. If you happen to instructed me I used to be going to depart for someplace with triple the YouTube following, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Yaffe stopped by the Most Progressive Corporations podcast to debate constructing a family-friendly model, increasing into new verticals, and delivering a private connection to followers.
Some creators use YouTube as a stepping stone to make different varieties of content material, like TV reveals. That doesn’t appear to be your technique. How do you view the platform and the best way to leverage it for progress?
Fifteen years in the past the fellows actually prioritized YouTube, they usually’ve achieved an amazing job constructing the biggest sports activities channel on the platform. Each different Saturday, we submit a video at 9 a.m.—it’s often half-hour lengthy and takes a number of weeks to provide and has A-list expertise. The model extensions all come off that YouTube presence. That’s the way it’s been for the cruise that we ran, the excursions we’ve achieved, and the toys we’ve launched.
YouTube continues to be the No. 1 streaming platform in America. On the NBA, 80% of our YouTube consumption was exterior the U.S. So whereas it’s the largest platform in America, it’s additionally, by far, probably the most accessible and largest platform exterior the U.S. I feel that’s an enormous alternative for us. We’re doing a tour subsequent summer time, and it will likely be our first world tour. We’re doing 20 stops within the U.S. and 5 stops in Europe. We’ve bought out greater than 50 NBA arenas over the course of our excursions.
Moreover that tour, what does the following stage for Dude Good seem like?
Going ahead, we’ll actually start to take a position extra deeply in some off-platform extensions. That could be new content material and new codecs on different platforms as properly. We lately launched our personal connected-TV app. We’ve additionally began bringing in different high creators who we predict match the family-friendly vibe and ethos of our content material. [Science and engineering YouTuber] Mark Rober is now on our app as properly.
We’re numerous new verticals. Our present guys will seemingly be part of it, however there’s seemingly going to be different expertise as properly who’s a part of these areas. We solely have 5 dudes proper now, and there’s solely a sure variety of hours of their day. As we develop as a scalable media firm, we would want different expertise. There’s some issues that I feel are very pure extensions of who Dude Good as a model or firm is—the by way of traces are household, enjoyable, and sports activities. There are additionally enterprise alternatives, like our toy enterprise, which may not require expertise to function.
You’ve talked about going into verticals like gaming. Why?
It begins with our viewers. My common sense is that 8- to 15-year-old boys like video video games. So we’re simply going to be actually experimental. Now we have a channel, Dude Good Gaming the place our guys play completely different video games and see what resonates with our viewers. We’ve heard loads from our present model companions, “Hey, in case you guys ever do one thing in gaming, we’d like to be part of it as a result of it’s such a pure and genuine match.” There’s loads of creators who want to make sure that each initiative is [delivering immediate returns]. However we’re well-capitalized, and we get to take a step again and say, alright, over the following three, 5, 10 years, how do we actually construct an enormous, sustainable media firm? That doesn’t must occur in month one or month two of each initiative.
What did you be taught on the NBA that you just’re bringing to this job?
Followers love highlights and sport motion, however they actually wish to be related to personalities and quirks. [They want to see] humorous moments off the courtroom. Now, I’m residing that. That’s what we wish to produce and ship. We wish to ship a direct connection to our expertise—that’s one thing we have now loads of management over and might facilitate in a method that was harder in an expert sport. We are able to additionally make it extra predictable and extra deliberate than a stay sporting occasion. One of many nice issues about stay sports activities is that you just don’t know who’s going to win. However now, on the finish of the day, I do know who we’re going to be in each video. We are going to at all times be Dude Good.
How do you ship the form of private connection you described?
[The audience wants] to see behind the scenes. They need actual entry. During the last yr and within the final a number of movies, we’ve began to share much more round our misses. For a very long time, folks would ask if we had been utilizing AI, or if [the trick shots] had been actual. We had an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary that targeted on [us making] the world’s highest basketball shot. It took an extended, very long time to make that shot. The values of labor ethic, perseverance, and authenticity are squarely what we would like our followers to really feel and see.
There are some creators—Dude Good is one among them—who’ve license to do no matter they need. How do you determine what’s brand-appropriate as you develop?
We’re very targeted on being trusted leisure. I can’t inform you the variety of dad and mom I’ve talked to since I began who stated the rationale they love Dude Good is as a result of they know that if their youngster or teenager is watching [us], they will belief every part in it. We take that extremely severely. We’re most likely the one media firm that hasn’t had sports-betting promoting over the previous 10 years. There’s an entire listing of issues that we’d say is sensible for another person, however not for us. We don’t wish to violate the belief of these dad and mom.
Why do you assume the dudes needed a CEO?
They’re 5 actually shut buddies. I take into consideration the truth that if I began an organization with my 5 actually shut buddies, we’d argue about loads of stuff. To their credit score, they realized that one particular person making a call is extra environment friendly than 5. From day one throughout our interviews, they’d say, “You’re the tiebreaker, you’re the one who makes the calls.”
Within the workplace, do you go by Chief Government Dude?
No, no I’m simply CEO.