[00:00] right. So, I left my agency. I want to talk about why I left and I want to talk about some of the general things that are happening in the influencer industry because nobody from the industry actually talks about it. It's just
[00:13] never kind of hear from people that work in it. And for the past two years, I've worked in it. I ran an advertising company. So, we worked for brands and we it. We did big ads. Mostly by the end of it were working for mostly major
[00:26] companies. So there there was some internal business issues and stuff about co-founders. I I probably won't end up talking about. We'll see. Uh but it's not really important. The the the main thing is there's a the theme of this
[00:40] video is thing I want to talk about a lot is soul. And I feel like I got into the work of taking care of influencers because content creation is cool. And it's like the only place where you can message somebody so directly and they
[00:54] it's not advertising exactly. Although opportunities and things like that, but when you hear from an influencer, you authentic than traditional media. I always thought that was really cool and
[01:06] that it could do a lot of good. But it feels like a lot of the influencer industry, if you want to make a lot of money these days, has kind of been hijacked at a high level by either cryptocurrency, by gambling money, or
[01:21] problem in esports that I'll probably talk about in this video a little bit. So, the ad industry ended up being very hard to make money in. And don't get me brands and there's a lot of people doing ads, but most of those people are
[01:35] running things on like Adwords or they're running stuff on uh Google. I sponsorships at a high level across like uh Twitch, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram, that kind of stuff. And for those kind of sponsorships, if you want the really
[01:49] money, you you've got to go into gambling and you've got to go into these um these people that have really what we call high LTVs, lifetime value of a customer. And unfortunately, it just feels like a lot of the industry has
[02:02] been captured by that to the point where nowadays I don't feel like there's a lot of really interesting problems left in the influencer industry to solve. Whereas like when I got into it in 20 uh 21 or so, I after after I left esports,
[02:16] interesting problems and I felt like there was a lot of um connections that lot of the deals are very standardized and there's just not that much kind of more importantly, I think there's so many other interesting things
[02:30] happening in the world right now, which I want to kind of talk about here as like each of these topics deserves its own video, but just some cool things for thing I've been thinking about constantly is content creation. And I
[02:46] I'll talk about towards the end of this video what I want to do in content video what I want to do in content creation. But at at this point, um I feel like I get asked all the time, can you still become a content creator?
[02:59] Like, oh, it's 2025. Like there's this feeling that content creation is very viewers or there's too many streamers, there's too many people making YouTube videos. There is from a person who has run thousands of influencer deals over
[03:12] the last four or five years, there is way more viewers than creators. It's actually the best time to become a content creator ever. Like the platforms, the technology, everything is set up so much better than it ever has
[03:25] been. But more importantly, there are actually very few people that are consistently creating videos, consistently creating powerful writing, know why that is. I feel like we're in just a much it's kind of the same in
[03:41] everywhere in entertainment. There's just not that many people that are motivation thing or a cultural thing, but like I know the perception is that way too many creators. I and I'm telling you, um, my agency and and and every
[03:56] desperate to find creators to find consistent creators to sponsor. We just never had enough. Um, there is so many more people willing to watch a video than there is to create one. And there's so many more people willing to watch
[04:09] entertainment. So much easier to do than to actually produce it. So content creation is really, really interesting to me still. And the influencer side of industry side of influencing is really interesting to me. It's something that
[04:22] that's something that I I I really want to think about like a lot more. Um, and in a bit, but content creation is like huge threat. And the next thing that I'm really thinking about a lot is is AI. The most interesting thing about AI is
[04:37] that it has the it has the largest potential to change the world. Like for better or for worse, I'm not sure. the the current and the current state of AI is that I think nobody sees that platforms like X or YouTube, they'll be
[04:54] completely overrun by AI if the companies don't do something about it. Um, we're already kind of seeing this. If you look at like YouTube shorts where like AI slop is just everywhere, it's going to get infinitely worse when
[05:06] going to get infinitely worse when things like V3, uh, basically commercial just like you can go to chat GBT today and you can type a prompt and something which should come in the next like one or two years, I if if you can do that,
[05:20] then I I think there's going to be so many videos on YouTube and just just by to rank like legitimate creators. It'll be much harder to like distribute ads, so people will make a lot less money and stuff like that. Um the counter this is
[05:35] I've talked to Google a lot about this and I think they're the most aware of it. They've already demonetized AI videos and they're kind of in the process of like separating actual creator videos from videos that are AI
[05:48] generated. But it'll be hard to tell, right? Like like at some point really indistinguishable from AI. Like you could you could plug me in to a um some kind of generator. You can kind of do
[06:00] this now. I've made some videos on this channel just showing this. And you can believably me and then in like a year from now, like two years from now, which me. And there's no way to tell any different. If that happens, I don't even
[06:14] there's like a metadata thing you can do. It's something I want to look into channel, we'll probably talk about it. But just the general idea that literally we're not going to know what's real is crazy. I'm not sure what to do about
[06:28] that. like it's it's going to be totally insane. So, I I I thought I think I like talked a lot about like content creation like still is like it's not under existential threat from AI yet. And ironically, like some platforms like
[06:41] all those places. Uh they'll they'll survive a lot longer because it's much an AI perspective than it is to duplicate a VOD. Um things like esports and things like that uh will will survive longer and and event based
[06:56] stuff. Well, let's talk about esports actually. So esports is something that I left esports as a team owner in 2019 I was like looking at the industry very
[07:08] same. Like the way I'm looking at the ad industry today, it feels exactly the same as I was looking at esports in 2019 where I was like, okay, this whole thing is getting franchised. It's getting standardized. And I think what nobody
[07:21] wants to talk about this this is like probably a pretty hot take, but like I think from an industry standpoint, okay, from from a which I mean like a the esports or having business be done in esports, it's like completely dead in
[07:35] there's still viewership and and I understand viewership overall in esports understand viewership overall in esports over the course of like 2023 to 2025 is increasing. It's not decreasing. It feels like that in North America, but
[07:49] esports is an Asian thing. I It's dominating. It's dominating in China. It's dominating in Korea. But the business model in America only makes sense if you have sovereign wealth money or you have uh gambling money, betting,
[08:04] basically, esports betting. And even Riot, which runs VCT, which runs League of Legends, Counter, Counter-Strike run by Valve, but um they run mo Riot runs most most of the major esports. Even Riot was like, "Yeah, we're going to
[08:17] take on betting and and gambling deals." Um, just recently after a long time of long history of like partnerships with DraftKings. There's just no way around it. I'm not making an ethical judgment necessarily on gambling in esports and
[08:34] gambling like how prolific it is for in influencer marketing. It's just sort of why I'm It's just a big part of like why I'm not interested in continuously running a business here. I want the work I do to matter. I think that if you are
[08:49] working, like your very limited time in this earth, you should be trying to another one of those places where at least in North America and the US, it just like and EU, it just makes no sense to be a team owner. It makes no sense to
[09:04] to run a business there. The advertising revenue doesn't add up. The sponsor, the the player salaries are way too high. And the interest is there, the niche interest is there, but the sort of soul of the sport and like the storylines has
[09:16] kind of been taken over by sports watching, sovereign wealth funds, mostly people with a lot of money who are willing to pay huge amounts to convert younger people to their platforms and or or to their ideology like um move to
[09:33] Dubai or something or whatever, right? Like it's fine. Like it's it's it is me. I I I I don't want to keep running ads for that kind of stuff. Um I want to do something more impactful, which I guess I'll get to in a second. Um so
[09:47] guess I'll get to in a second. Um so from 2012 to 2015, before I got into streaming. And esports will still live on in live streaming, too, and and will still do pretty well. And there's still some areas of esports that I love like
[10:00] FGC. Like like I still think that like Smash and fighting games like retain that feeling of the old OG League of Legends like like 2015 Madison Square Garden type feel, but they still think there's that's there. But live streaming
[10:14] in general, um sure we'll talk about it on this channel a little bit more. live understand my take on live streaming because when I when I talk to people about they think that I think that they they think that I think that Twitch is
[10:26] fail. And I've never thought that. I' like I' I've always just thought it should be so much more than it is. But at the very top level of live streaming, at the very top level of live streaming, it's captured by toxic drama, politics.
[10:40] that are really old on this channel? Okay, just leave a comment if you're one this that YouTube went through this phase of react. Okay, they they re still react videos out there, but it's not like every video, but reaction like
[10:55] "This is what I think of that video and stuff like that. I do it. Everybody does it." Twitch feels like it has never left that react phase that YouTube was in. there's all kinds of stuff you can see
[11:08] there's educational stuff, there's uh animated stuff, there's all kinds of stuff you there's like there's like talking head stuff like I do. All kinds of cool stuff that you can do on YouTube. But Twitch never left its react
[11:20] phase. Like if you're not a gamer, you're just reacting to stuff all day. So the meta at the top of live streaming, but on all websites, not just Twitch, is really boring. I it's it's the if you were to take a stream and you
[11:33] were like a 2025 stream of like one of the top 100 streamers and you just transpose it against a stream that they did from 2020. If you didn't know the wasn't current news, it would be the exact same stream. Like webcam in the
[11:48] corner, um same type of energy, same type of tonality, very very little innovation in live streaming. Um when it could be so much more when you look at some things like the very few innovators that are on the sites like Kaisen the AM
[12:01] crew agent the guy Lewig like the guys that are running events and the guys themselves right because the econ the economics of these events doesn't make sense but when you when you look at the kind of things that those people put on
[12:14] traveling to different countries you're showing different cultures or in Kai's university where you get together like hundreds of people and and like you'd have classes and you have this whole like like storyline. That's the
[12:28] potential that like Ebby is another one of these people. The the Spain Ebide there are these people out there that are really pushing the entire genre of live streaming forward but it's like not enough. It's it's it's it's just because
[12:41] the the like and that's why like live streaming isn't really breaking into the mainstream except for those things like you'll see eBay run an event for like 6 million people because that's where live streaming really excels is like that I
[12:54] was here moment and there's still that potential but I feel like we're being held back by the platforms more than anything because the platforms aren't willing to like Twitch in particular is just not willing to say hey this is my
[13:09] identity. We're not okay with like politics. We want to like go back to we want to go back to like what um people actually want to see, which is like either like really high level gaming content or um like really interesting
[13:22] that. And and and since they're not willing to please that, as advertisers, investing in those platforms with all the toxic stuff that's going on on them. platforms stagnate when they really shouldn't. Like they they should like
[13:35] the medium of live streaming is so awesome. So, um, I guess those are some the industry is doing. We're probably going to have a separate video about every one of those topics because I'm going to talk a little bit about what
[13:48] I'm doing next. Um, and here that goes. So, I have done esports. I've done service both as software and I've done highle work. I've built two big companies at this point and I'm always trying to think about like where I make
[14:04] trying to think about like where I make a difference in the world. Um, and I've never felt like I've made a difference in the world like I have made in content creation. Like when I was making videos and when I was talking a lot over the
[14:18] course of the last two years, I've very rarely made videos because I was afraid. I felt like I needed to have some kind of authority um to be able to justify like a lot of my positions. And so I work in the
[14:31] industry because I feel like uh I'm not enough to make videos. Um, and so like I feel like I have to like build more legitimacy, build more authority, and But the truth is that no amount of authority will ever make haters happy. I
[14:48] understand that because um, recently Twitch has been going through like a Twitch has been going through like a view botting scandal. And um when it comes to live streaming information and and things about like the live streaming
[15:01] industry and the ad industry as it pertains to like direct sponsorships and influencers, there's probably like 50 people in the world, probably less than that. It might be 10 that know that as well as I do, just that have run the
[15:13] deals that are actually in it. And yet like no matter how much authority that I built on these topics and no matter how how much legitimacy I added by working with big companies and um the people that are in the industry will will
[15:27] always support me which which are the people that matter but the like the they'll they'll tell you like oh like you're a scammer you don't know what methodologies are bad things like that. um they're they're your guardians in
[15:40] content creation that are keeping they want to keep you out of making things and and like I kind of let them win over the last like 2 or 3 years because I was to hear from like an industry guy. It's like too boring, too niche, whatever."
[15:53] And I mostly stayed on Patreon that entire time making videos about how to I could like build a community of people that were actually interested in stuff that I wanted to talk about. So, I still did Patreon. Nowadays, we're up to like
[16:06] 150 videos on Patreon. It's like um it's it's it's insanely valuable. It's five people that stayed with me on that and I always felt comfortable creating there. But in like YouTube and like Twitter um you have to like go out to the whole
[16:20] matter what your authority is are just not going to accept what your position is. Either they have some kind of baked in ideology um or or or they're just not about you. Like they just don't like who who I am. Fine. Right. But I I I don't I
[16:36] I feel like when I compare the amount of difference I was making when I are like, you know what, I decided to become a content creator and now I'm here because you you said X, Y, and Z.
[16:48] because of them. But I if I was some small part of that, that's awesome. small part of that, that's awesome. That felt so much better than being in the ad industry world, the ad tech world, and just like no one knowing
[17:02] anything about what I do, but like you'd see a big ad from a Fortune 500 or made that happen." But in the end of the day, what's that? Just to like push more product or like, you know, push more money around to like huge companies. It
[17:16] like I've got obviously there's like a ton of people I've met in the agency world and I respect you guys and like um it's just not for me anymore. Like it's just I I I think I as dumb as it sounds and it's like I'm losing out on a lot of
[17:29] doesn't make any sort of money compared to what uh running businesses does the the I just want to go back. I want to create again. Um I want to talk about things that are in the new media world, the social media world, the business
[17:45] world. And I feel like I have been waiting for like two or three years for an impartial nonbiased creator who's kind of data and analytical driven to explain issues in a way that sometimes usually when I create a video I do it
[17:59] nothing out there that's explaining it to the degree that I want it explained. Like um you can get like sort of updates on what's happening but to understand the issue at like a technical level is is um there's not really a lot of people
[18:13] doing that. A and so I was like, man, um I kept waiting for this. It just didn't happen. There's there's no there's very few people from the actual industry that they're either a making so much money they don't care or b um there's actually
[18:27] a a brand risk of them doing so. Uh which is another reason I didn't create a lot was because like if um I'm working for a Fortune 500 or something and I post something insane on X um I'm representing that brand literally on
[18:39] canceled or or um all kinds of number of things that you kind of see all the time happens in like larger organizations. So I feel like going back and and and
[18:51] really giving an honest like 6 8 months maybe a year to just creating and and a lot. Like the probably the two are are X and Twitter where I really think there's a lot of criticism about X
[19:07] and Twitter that's all deserved but it's also a place where like a lot of people are listening. Um and so I I I really want to create there. I've been creating there on twitter.com/devanash. And also I'll do I'll do YouTube
[19:20] you if you like my stuff and you want to don't know how many of those people that you are. Maybe you can tell me. We'll do a secret call out. 1930. Okay. If you're still here in a Devon Nash video 1930,
[19:33] leave a comment and let me know. Okay. Um, but but if you guys want me to make the best update for you because I'm going to make more videos and and and don't really care about viewership that much. Um, like I'm not going to go to be
[19:48] about them and I'll do a little bit of live streaming too like like maybe two or three times a week going forward. Um, and I mean I I'm going to be like really patreon.com/devanash.
[20:02] support me if you want these videos to happen. That will be my only source of is fine. I'm doing like just fine. Don't need anything. But, um, that's $5 for 150 videos, 30 minutes long each. They're not anywhere else. And they're
[20:17] all about like how I grow businesses, um, self-improvement type of stuff, uh, things like that. That's a good Patreon if you if you want to be a part of that. consulting, too. I'm reopening that because I didn't have time and I really
[20:31] like that I that um there's a link in the description of the consulting but like sitting with someone and doing a deep dive into their business and that. Again, that's that sort of like direct touch stuff that I'm looking more
[20:43] to do rather than this kind of like like back in the shadows ad stuff. So if you people that would message me for consulting that I'd never had time for at Novo. And um if you uh want that I'd be happy to do it. Um, but I eventually
[20:59] be happy to do it. Um, but I eventually I I'll get into product. So like at some I I'll get into product. So like at some point I want to build a product. Um, I'm info product where like I really put together some of my best information
[21:11] about how to grow broadcast or how to do or how to um how to get good sales leads at Nova. Like something something like that that I might sell for like a couple hundred bucks. That's option one. Option two is like I really want to get into
[21:26] green tea. Um that's a huge passion of mine. I drink green tea every single day and so I I would really love to sell that. So I like and it's something I've go the next thing I want to do. I'm still going to stay in the business
[21:38] going to just become a content creator. Uh I will for a while like maybe the probably forget that I said this but eventually I'm going to go back into product because I'm just too I just I love business too much. It's and uh so I
[21:51] hopefully it'll be like something like in the health area green tea where I can like feel like I'm selling something that people are getting a direct benefit from. It's like improving their life in some way. Um but yeah, I I I think I'm I
[22:04] I'm still going to do a couple of deals here and there, but I want to keep searching for the soul. I want to keep searching for like where the difference searching for like where the difference can be made. Um, I read most of the
[22:18] comments that people post about me. And so, if you are still here after all of about this video, maybe it's the first time it's showing up on your feed and you're like, "Hey, like I want an industry guy um that's been in the
[22:30] boring issues for 45 minutes to make more videos." Then like um that's awesome. Thank you so much for for uh for you never need to financially stuff and maybe leave a comment that says like yeah like hey still here or
[22:45] I'm new here and I just appreciate it. It makes a big difference. Um, I I'm I'm It makes a big difference. Um, I I'm I'm definitely not uh immune to like a lot and I'm not going to I'm going to try really hard not to let it hold me back
[22:59] anymore uh as much as it has been when I was in the when I was in when I was kind of behind in the ad scenes, but uh the people that the people that post the comments that that uh that are
[23:11] supporting me really matter a lot. So, I'm going to create more for you guys. annoying people and talking. So, uh, follow this channel and also follow the spend most of most most of the time. Also, I'm 24/7 on Discord. I have been
[23:24] for years. So, discord.gg/devon. All the links are down in the description. Uh, but if you want to come and hang out in the Discord, Discord's free and there's me like pretty much right away. So, thank you everybody for watching this
[23:36] you guys again for the next one. There's a lot of exciting things to talk about, so I'll probably go right into writing after this. All right. Uh, see you. Bye.