A lot of us think about what we’d write in a letter to ourselves ten years ago, but Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry have taken it one step further by creating a whole Colin and Samir course.
For over a decade, Colin and Samir have been an integral part of the YouTube landscape, attracting over 1.3 million followers. Initially beginning as sports YouTubers, the pair pivoted to creator economy news and interviews through their YouTube series and podcast, The Colin and Samir Show. The pair also launched The Publish Press, a newsletter for creators.
After years of interviewing creators like Smosh, Emma Chamberlain, and MrBeast, they are now sharing what they’ve learned about turning ideas into business in ‘Creator Startup,’ their new 30-day course starting on Feb. 5.
“There was this incredibly frustrating time where we felt like we were capable creatively,” Chaudry told Passionfruit. “But we really struggled to support ourselves from the business side. We did not understand the business of media and the business of being a creator.”
“You know, it’s a dream job, but it’s still a job,” he added. “And you have to build it in a way that is really comfortable and maintains that creative spark and that creative impulse that you first had when you wanted to do this.”
This, Chaudry explained, is why the program is made up of four major pillars: audience, value prop, process, and monetization. Powered through Kajabi, Creator Startup demystifies the money-making process for up-and-coming creators. For $1,797, creators will get access to seven live sessions with Colin and Samir, twelve pre-recorded video modules, an accompanying workbook, and a full, workable pitch deck to take to brands in order to be successful in obtaining brand deals.
“When you make the decision to turn your creativity into a business, there is some part of it that can feel a little nebulous and a little bit like ‘Okay, when inspiration strikes, I make a video, and then if I make a video hopefully an advertiser reaches out,’” he explained. “You know, we want to bring that down and say, ‘Okay, here’s the actual framework of how this could work, how you can build a sustainable business for yourself, how you can create predictable monthly revenue, with your creativity.’”
By the end of the Colin and Samir course, you’ll have built your own pitch deck for advertisers, with Colin and Samir guiding you through every step of the process.
“We’re all startups. Our product is media, and that product is deeply personal. It’s us showing up on camera. So it can be really hard to evaluate your product when it’s you,” Chaudry adds. “And I think our goal is to help you with frameworks of that and understand how the business works.”
Of all the skills new creators need to develop, Chaudry thinks the most important is pricing. “It has some human emotion connected to it, like self-worth,” he explained. “There are some formulas out there, but you know, I think it’s based on so many different factors sometimes creators don’t deeply understand.”
Kajabi’s CEO, Ahad Khan, told Passionfruit that what makes the Colin and Samir course unique is that it’s targeted towards creators who are at a very specific point in their career. “There’s this access to knowledge that I think really differentiates what they’re doing here on the right type of people who are really in it to win it,” he said.
“Something that we want to be hyper clear with this course is that it’s not for the new creator,” Chaudry adds. “It’s not for the aspiring creator. It’s for the creator who is really committed to making videos on a consistent basis who has probably done a brand deal or two in the past, and is really serious about turning this into their career.”
But what is the biggest mistake mid-level creators like this make? For Chaudry, it’s “caring a little bit too much about the audience you don’t have and overlooking the audience you do have.”
“There was a time when we had 10,000 people watching each of our videos, all we wanted was 100,000 people watching our videos,” he admits. “I think sometimes you overlook those people who are getting value from your videos.”
But the one takeaway Chaudry emphasized to Passionfruit is that every creator is different. “The goal is to build a career in the startup that works for you,” he said. “There’s so many different versions of this career, and I think we can sometimes get caught up in what success looks like for other people.”
