• The session is designed to help understand and support creators across different sectors, including writers, actors, producers, directors, and podcasters.
• The panelists are from the Ventures group at ABC, which invests in creator economy, future entertainment, and frontier technology.

Panelists Introduction:

• Justin Kohn: Co-founder of Twitch, runs ABC Fund Go DC, has a TikTok and YouTube career, and is also a part-time DJ.
• Kris Allen: Began her career as a stylist and is a leading digital creator. She co-founded Flor, a leading fragrance brand.
• Eddie Huang: A multifaceted individual, who is a lawyer, restaurateur, creator of Fresh Off the Boat, memoir writer, and director of Boogie.

Eddie Huang’s Journey:

• Huang’s creative inspiration came from movies like Good Will Hunting and X-Men, which he felt resonated with his own experiences.
• He started making short films during college but was discouraged when a professor told him a film with an all-Asian cast would not be successful.
• His breakthrough came when he saw Asian culture becoming popular in food and television, and he decided to become a part of it.

Chriselle Lim’s Journey:

• Lim started her creative journey in college with a YouTube page.
• After her first video went viral, she continued creating content and eventually started her blog, a production company, and a fine fragrance company.
• She shared personal moments from her life, including her relationships, motherhood, and divorce, which helped her connect deeply with her followers.

Justin Kan’s Journey:

• Kan started as an internet entrepreneur during college. He had an idea for a tech company and got funding through a program called Y Combinator.
• Despite initial failures, he kept pursuing his idea and later came up with Justin TV, a live stream of his life that eventually evolved into Twitch, a popular live streaming platform.

Eddie Huang’s Views on Restaurants and Technology

• Dreams in storytelling, emotions, data, and technology drive the creation of his restaurant experiences.
• Post-pandemic, restaurants face challenges with inflation and rent. However, he believes that home cooking and dining in restaurants are still the best ways to experience food.
• Given modern lifestyle challenges, he sees a future for robotics and ghost kitchens. These won’t replace restaurants but may replace items like TV dinners or frozen pizzas.
• He discussed working with Sessions, a tech company, to set up pop-up restaurants in London. This concept will later expand into ghost kitchens, delivering high-quality restaurant food closer to people’s homes.
• He sees a trend where restaurants are becoming content creators rather than just physical brick and mortar spaces.
• Technology helps democratize the restaurant business, where chefs can focus on cooking and creating a brand, while logistics and paperwork are handled by a tech host.
• He advocates for considering a universal basic income as robotics and automation will replace many entry-level jobs.

Justin Kan’s Perspective on AI and Tech Market

• It’s challenging to predict where the gains in the AI market will be. He expressed skepticism towards startups that focus too much on AI, as these features can be added by established companies more quickly than new ones can amass customers.
• He mentioned thinking about new products that could aggregate a new customer base using AI, hinting at an unsexy idea he’s considering.
• He believes gains from AI have mainly gone to established tech companies like Nvidia.
• When thinking about an AI business, he suggests considering whether the product usage creates a unique dataset, as with TikTok’s algorithm that learns from users’ interactions with videos.

Chriselle Lim’s Thoughts on Social Platforms and Brands

• She has monetized all platforms from blogging to Instagram and TikTok, with her main focus being TikTok and Instagram.
• TikTok has democratized the fashion and beauty space, allowing newer brands to gain access to massive retailers and international marketplaces.
• The power now resides with the creators, who have the ability to serve their niche audiences.
• She believes in a 360-degree approach where customers need to see a product in multiple places before they purchase it. This approach makes TikTok a valuable platform for brand visibility.
• She advises brands not to invest all their advertising dollars in one platform, but to have a presence everywhere.

Justin Kan’s Insights

• Kan revealed that his entrepreneurial and investment practices lean towards authenticity, using his own wins and losses in business to guide others. He believes this authenticity appeals to fellow entrepreneurs who may want him to invest in their businesses.
• Kan mentioned his interest in pursuing a DJ career, drawing inspiration from David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, who also moonlights as a DJ. Kan emphasized the need to convert his audience from entrepreneurship content to music.
• He expressed simultaneous fear and excitement about AI technology. While acknowledging its potential dangers, he also highlighted its potential to usher in an era of global prosperity.

Eddie Huang’s Perspectives

• Huang discussed his preference for creating long-form content, even as many others are producing short-form content. His aim is to provide a different offering, believing that diversity in content is crucial.
• He reminisced about his father’s philosophy of avoiding crowded spaces, using it as a metaphor for his approach to content creation, opting for less populated and less conventional paths.
• Huang expressed concern over whether technology enhances or diminishes genuine human interaction, indicating that this forms the core of his apprehensions and excitement about technology in relation to the creator economy.

Chriselle Lim’s Opinions

• Lim brought up the notion of a pendulum swing in content creation trends, asserting that the pendulum has swung towards short-form content during the pandemic, but she sees a shift back towards long-form content due to a craving for more storytelling.
• She shared her concerns about a growing sameness in content and fashion, seeing it as potentially stifling creativity.
• Lim expressed excitement about consumers having more power in the current era, with the ability to dictate what they want to see and purchase.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;23;27
Moderator
Presenting creators and helping their creative dreams. True writers, actors, producers, directors, podcasters, anything, everything in between. We’re thrilled today to have a few of our talents on the panel with us. And within each year, I sit in our Ventures group as a partner at ABC, which is a venture platform that invests in detectives and says in the creator economy, future of entertainment and frontier tech.

00;00;24;00 – 00;00;47;14
Moderator
So it’s my absolute pleasure to moderate this panel today. We have an incredible group of panelists. Thank you. First of all, House for co-hosting with us, as well as to Cooley, a leading law firm that we’re thrilled to have as partners over there is Rachel and Brad. If you have any questions about Cooley really quick. We have Justin Kohn, who is a true multi-hyphenate in every sense of the word.

00;00;47;16 – 00;01;11;12
Moderator
He co-founded Twitch. He runs ABC fund Go DC. He has a Tik Tok career, a YouTube career. I just heard you part time deejay. He is the creator economy. We have Kris Allen, who began her career as a stylist, became one of the leading digital creators, and then expanded that to launch multiple business lines. She co-founded Flor, which is a leading fragrance brand.

00;01;11;14 – 00;01;33;23
Moderator
And then we have Eddie Huang, who is another multihyphenate in so many different ways, has been a lawyer, a restaurateur, the creator of Fresh Off the Boat, a memoir, writer, director of Boogie, and so many things in between. So give them all a warm welcome.

00;01;33;26 – 00;01;48;16
Moderator
And before we dive in to make sure we have some high energy here, and just to get a sense of who’s in the audience, if you’re a founder in some form, can you just quickly raise your hands? Fantastic. If you are an investor, raise your hand.

00;01;48;19 – 00;01;53;03
Eddie Huang
Oh, I need to talk to you.

00;01;53;06 – 00;02;12;21
Moderator
And you are a creator in a way. Raise your hand. Fantastic. So thrilled to have you all here. Let’s dive in. Let’s start with you, Eddie. I would love for you to just tell us about your journey. How did you begin? How did you end up, you know, to where you are now in your journey as a creative and entrepreneur?

00;02;12;23 – 00;02;42;02
Eddie Huang
Well, really, for me it was just that I watch Good Will Hunting when I was 17 and I was like, I had never related to any movie like that in my life. And I was just like, Wow, you know, they’re talking about things that I didn’t really have anybody to talk about. And I just felt, you know, this is kind of a magical thing that, you know, I went through so much of my adolescent life just like hiding what was going on at home.

00;02;42;04 – 00;03;01;14
Eddie Huang
And these two guys from Boston told like an amazing story. Beautiful story. And it felt like they were in my heart. And mind you, I was just like, I would like to pull off that magic trick one day. I would like to tell the story that some kid out there is going to feel seen and heard in, and literally that was it.

00;03;01;18 – 00;03;26;12
Eddie Huang
And the only other time I think I was that inspired was like reading X-Men Cancer X would try to get in touch with other mutants who put on Cerebro, and I was like, Well, that feels like art to me, right? Like, you just put on the helmet and you try to connect to all the other weirdos. So I was just on this mission to, like, connect with other strange people like myself.

00;03;26;14 – 00;03;58;29
Eddie Huang
And I made a couple of short films and borrowed the library camcorder in college and made a short film in the liquor store parking lot. And the teacher was just like, This is pretty cool, and sent it into Columbia. I went to Columbia Summer Film Scholarship, but unfortunately when I was there, I did another short film and there was a professor that watched it and was like, This is phenomenal, but no one is ever going to make a film with an all Asian cast.

00;03;59;01 – 00;04;29;17
Eddie Huang
You should really start to think about writing from the Jewish perspective because they will make happen. It’s very similar. I love the Jewish culture and you know, when you receive the university, you really try like heartbroken, you know, to hear somebody be like, It will never happen. And I had already been through the system for a lot of like stuff I did as a kid.

00;04;29;17 – 00;04;52;15
Eddie Huang
And so I had to charges. I had to be rehabilitated myself and to work that hard and have this guy just tell me my face like no one is ever going to let this happen. I just kind of put it in the back of my mind and I was like, one day, One day. And that’s the thing I always tell kids, people just like, it may not happen the minute you want to.

00;04;52;15 – 00;05;14;09
Eddie Huang
It may not happen in a month, a year or ten years. But one day the universe opens a window and you just got to run through it. And I saw when yes, we’re getting really popular, you know, the big movie, David Chang, Roy Choi. And I was like, okay, they’ll let us into film. They don’t let us into television, but they do trust us with like kung fu and.

00;05;14;09 – 00;05;16;08
Eddie Huang
Food.

00;05;16;11 – 00;05;29;00
Eddie Huang
Quote unquote, experts. And if you think about it, from 2008, there were no Asian celebrities. So I was just like, I think I could be a celebrity if I made really good food. And like.

00;05;29;03 – 00;05;33;06
Chriselle Lim
I do work.

00;05;33;09 – 00;05;46;24
Eddie Huang
And I just opened the house I was selling. I was so embarrassed because she came to stay with me and were like running in and out of the stairwell at night. And she’s like, What are you doing? And we’ll play a K.

00;05;46;27 – 00;05;47;27
Eddie Huang
They’re.

00;05;47;29 – 00;06;10;15
Eddie Huang
Playing to K. And she was just like, I didn’t raise her to do this. So I took all my money in the shoe box and I went up about house like two weeks later, go Yeah. Wow. So and then. And then that’s it. Then it.

00;06;10;17 – 00;06;14;10
Chriselle Lim
Was incredible. Well, we’ll dive into some aspects.

00;06;14;12 – 00;06;15;17
Eddie Huang
Yeah.

00;06;15;20 – 00;06;18;07
Chriselle Lim
We’d love to learn more about your journey, your evolution.

00;06;18;16 – 00;06;42;11
Chriselle Lim
Hi, everyone. I’m Chriselle Lim. So my journey started off in college. I was bored and I was going to school for accounting, and I really didn’t like it. I realized that I was not good with numbers. So on the side, I started a YouTube page. I met myself on OG YouTube creator and and we ended up becoming friends.

00;06;42;11 – 00;06;59;12
Chriselle Lim
And she was like, You know, there’s someone doing fashion on YouTube. You should really try. And I had all the time in the world. I was in college, so I said, okay, I uploaded my first how to tie scarf to spoil. It went viral. I’m going viral Back then, you know, was a really big thing. It wasn’t like ticked off like every other video that goes viral.

00;06;59;12 – 00;07;20;12
Chriselle Lim
It was like millions of views. And I was like, Wow, there’s something here. So I just kept uploading videos throughout my college years and one thing led to another. Obviously, that was literally the start of kind of this cratered digital economy. Little did I know, but, you know, we were really doing it out of passion because we just love creating.

00;07;20;14 – 00;07;54;20
Chriselle Lim
And then from there I just constantly created videos for I was like 13 years and I just didn’t stop. And then one thing led to another and then I saw my blog. And then from there I started a production company and then I became a mom. I and I really let my followers into my life, personal life. So they went on this journey with me from meeting my boyfriend to a husband to then having kids and then going through a divorce.

00;07;54;20 – 00;08;15;17
Chriselle Lim
And then and I think that’s what it was for me, is I just let people into my life so as if they were my friends and my family. And it’s almost as if they grew with me and I shared my wins and my losses. And it’s been an incredible journey because I feel like they are really rooting for me.

00;08;15;20 – 00;08;32;07
Chriselle Lim
And so whenever I start businesses like Boom, Boom, it was an idea that I had when I first became a parent and I was like, There’s really nothing for parents to be able to just open up an app and be like, Okay, I need really high quality good childcare. Like I need my nanny called out sick, where can I do that?

00;08;32;09 – 00;09;04;15
Chriselle Lim
So that’s where I thought about Mom. And then my business partner, she helped me run that and then came about, which is a fine fragrance company that I started. Actually, we acquired it my business partner and I, and then we relaunched that and it went super viral on TikTok. And it was really through storytelling. And, you know, I was going through my divorce as we’re developing these fragrances and people like you can never sell fragrance that people have never smelled themselves before to see, right?

00;09;04;15 – 00;09;22;03
Chriselle Lim
Like, how do you do that? And so I was like, Well, I’m just going to tell my stories, like my emotions behind each fragrance. And the very first fragrance called Missing Person went incredibly viral because it was sharing the loss of someone that I loved and a moment in time. And I think everyone was able to relate to that.

00;09;22;03 – 00;09;40;11
Chriselle Lim
They’ve all been able to miss somebody. And so overnight we got a 20,000 person waitlist on a fragrance that no one smelled before. And yeah, and so that was the sort of flower which was about a year and a half ago. And so that’s my other business. So that’s me in a nutshell.

00;09;40;17 – 00;09;47;01
Justin Kan
I want to smell that my floor.

00;09;47;04 – 00;09;54;15
Chriselle Lim
And Justin, tell us a little bit about your journey. I will leave it there. Yeah.

00;09;54;18 – 00;10;21;17
Justin Kan
I was just in con I’m an Internet entrepreneur and I guess I’m a creator. But like, I think you guys make money creating content and I only lose money like super small community guys, but it’s my hobby. And so I got my start. I was in college also and I had this idea of starting a tech company back in 2004, and it wasn’t as popular back then and people don’t really know how to do it.

00;10;21;20 – 00;10;43;01
Justin Kan
And I luckily we had this idea for companies kind of like Google Calendar, but before Google Calendar came out, not that much before course, a couple months before. But the good thing was we we heard about a friend sent me this thing called Y Combinator, which is a new program to fund people who have sort of like college kids, that sort of idea.

00;10;43;01 – 00;11;04;25
Justin Kan
So we applied and we got into this program, along with the founders of Reddit. And Sam is now the founder of opening night. And we kind of got our started startups. And that sort of didn’t work out very well because Google came out with like a vastly superior product, like immediately. But it kind of introduced me to this idea of tech startups.

00;11;04;25 – 00;11;31;21
Justin Kan
And then while we were we had a YOLO selling that on eBay to like make a little bit of money. And while we were doing that, I was like, that’s like another idea for a not even a company, just a project. I guess it was like a creative project, which was like I could I was thinking about creating a livestream of my life to the Internet 24 seven and it was going to be called Justin TV, and this was before there was like Instagram Live or YouTube live or anything like that.

00;11;31;24 – 00;11;51;19
Justin Kan
And so what ended up happening was that when we went into our main investor, it was kind of like on their program, we went back to them and said, Hey, we have another idea for a company. Wasn’t this idea. It wasn’t just TV, it was this idea for like a book, like maker of your like online contacts. You can lay out your online content, you can print printed or book kind of boring.

00;11;51;25 – 00;12;20;29
Justin Kan
And he was like, Your idea sucks, this sucks. Do you have any other ideas? So I busted out my passion. I did Justin TV. I was like, Hey, I want to make a livestream of my life to the Internet. And he was like, Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more. You know, he liked it and it was one of his friends was there is professor of physics, professor of neuroscience at MIT, and he was just hanging out with him and he was like, Justin, I’ll fund that idea just to see you make a fool of yourself.

00;12;21;02 – 00;12;44;11
Justin Kan
And so I literally walked out there with a check for 50 grand, and that’s how we got the start. And then we had to figure out how to make it recruit some other friends to be co-founders of the company. And six months later we launched Justin TV. Like this live streaming site was back in 2007. And needless to say, I’m not that entertaining and content is much harder to make than I thought it was back then.

00;12;44;13 – 00;13;05;01
Justin Kan
And so tons of people showed up and then they all like, were like, You suck, you know, you’re like, you’ve been playing video games, you know, or you know, or you’re sleeping or you’re talking. You’re programing this website like it’s so boring. You do something. But the good thing was they also gave me this other piece of feedback, which was like, I want to create my own live video on there, how do I do it?

00;13;05;04 – 00;13;25;25
Justin Kan
And so we ended up making it a site for anyone to broadcast anything. And, you know, we kind of grew that. It became a pretty big website over the next couple of years. And then eventually we noticed that there was this one segment of content that was really people really passionate about, which was people playing video games on the Internet and watching other people play games.

00;13;25;28 – 00;13;45;16
Justin Kan
And luckily my co-founder, it was he was like, this is the he was like all the content on our site fucking sucks except for people playing video games. And he was like a huge Starcraft nerd and he loved like Starcraft. He would just come out. So he’s like always looking for these videos and he was like, We should just double down on this and focus on this.

00;13;45;16 – 00;14;07;11
Justin Kan
And I mean, very luckily he convinced the rest of us. We were like, okay, like that’s interesting because a couple of the co-founders hated the idea, you know, examples of real games that people. But then we ended up focusing on that and working on it, and it kind of grew and grew and grew and it became Twitch and then to 2014, sold to Amazon, almost like something nine years ago.

00;14;07;13 – 00;14;07;22
Justin Kan
Or how.

00;14;07;22 – 00;14;12;26
Chriselle Lim
Much.

00;14;12;29 – 00;14;13;15
Eddie Huang
You know.

00;14;13;18 – 00;14;36;11
Justin Kan
Inflation adjusted it sort of inflation adjusted. But you know, it was like it was a vacation. It kind of went through the whole roller coaster of start ups. And really, if you watch Silicon Valley, the TV show like the season two, when they’re working on the lot videos and stuff, was basically exactly like that.

00;14;36;14 – 00;14;39;23
Chriselle Lim
That’s incredible. All of you have such incredible stories. One of the things.

00;14;39;24 – 00;14;44;23
Eddie Huang
You have his work the most.

00;14;44;25 – 00;14;51;23
Eddie Huang
Straight. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00;14;51;26 – 00;15;12;15
Chriselle Lim
But the key element of a lot of your dreams in storytelling, the roller coaster letting emotions help guide what you’re building, letting data, help guide what you’re building, and then also the element of technology and tapping into an audience. And and he would love to dive deeper into how you’re using technology in the restaurant world and how you see that evolving.

00;15;12;17 – 00;15;36;29
Eddie Huang
Yeah, I mean, I think restaurants are in an interesting place, right? Like, especially after the pandemic with inflation and with rent, it’s just very, very difficult to serve food at a fair price to people. And like I always feel that still the best way to experience food is either in your home, like home cooking. I think it’s just always going to be number one.

00;15;37;01 – 00;15;56;24
Eddie Huang
That is the best place to do food. But number two is in a restaurant and it’s like going out to see a play, right? Like the doors open. Everybody knows their job. We’re all part of this play. And I think that dining experience is phenomenal. But with like two parent households, how the income inequality gap all of us work.

00;15;56;24 – 00;16;29;27
Eddie Huang
So hard, very few of us have time to like wake up, take care of the dog, go to work, come home and cook food. That’s tough. And so I do think that in this day and age, robotics and ghost kitchens are going to be the future and they’re not going to replace restaurants. That’s the good news. I think they’re going to replace things like TV dinners, frozen pizzas, things like that, because like what I’m doing right now in London, I was closed during the pandemic because I didn’t want to send our employees back to the restaurant when it really wasn’t safe.

00;16;30;00 – 00;16;52;15
Eddie Huang
And then we just didn’t know when it would end. The landlord kept charging me rent and I was just like, I have to pull the plug. But I got approached by a tech company called Sessions in London, and I’ve been working with them. And the idea is to pop up our house in places like pubs, right? We’re popping up in a place called Neighborhood on Islington right now that hosts chefs.

00;16;52;18 – 00;17;17;06
Eddie Huang
I’m there for three months, but after that, in July, I’m going to move to a pub because there’s a lot of like pubs in London that just don’t want to handle food. And also the food is like nasty. So there is a real culture in London of people doing pub residencies like St John started as a pop up in a pub residency and so we do the presidency so people can feel the brand and they get to know you.

00;17;17;08 – 00;17;39;24
Eddie Huang
But then we’re also launching in delivery markets all across the UK using CPU, using ghost kitchens. It’s the same food. You get the restaurant delivered like high quality close to your home. And I do think that is going to be the way that restaurants go and you start to see restaurants more as content creators as opposed to a physical brick and mortar space.

00;17;39;27 – 00;18;02;11
Eddie Huang
And I do think this will democratize restaurants as well because like for me as a dude, just like I was saying, eat on a bench, I had no idea like the permits and insurance and all those things. Like, luckily my brother came in to help me when I opened the restaurant, but like, you know, there’s a lot of, I think, you know, company like sessions you’re hosting chefs, all the permits are paid, all the insurance is paid.

00;18;02;13 – 00;18;13;09
Eddie Huang
You come in and do what you do best, which is cook food and create a brand, and then they can disseminate it through all the delivery markets. So that is like a way that I never thought I would be interacting with.

00;18;13;09 – 00;18;15;13
Eddie Huang
Technology.

00;18;15;15 – 00;18;24;16
Chriselle Lim
Yeah. The concept of using tech to democratize distribution I think is something that really all three of your stories lead into in some way.

00;18;24;16 – 00;18;43;15
Eddie Huang
So and I also think like delivering things in a fair price, I think that is just really important today, like finding ways using technology to deliver things in a fair price is the one thing I would say is if we’re going to go robotics, we’re going to go ghost kitchens. I would really think about universal basic income because people are going to get knocked out.

00;18;43;17 – 00;18;59;25
Eddie Huang
You’re going to lose a lot of like entry level, low level jobs. And so like as we use technology and things like that, I do think we have to look at that with some sort of guaranteeing a floor for people’s living expenses. Right.

00;18;59;28 – 00;19;18;03
Chriselle Lim
It said the the hot word of tech week, which is I so I’m going to dive into that a bit deeper and just I think you’re investing in a lot of different categories. I’d love to understand how you’re thinking about AI, if that’s an element of your investment thesis yet, or where you see that evolving.

00;19;18;03 – 00;19;42;23
Justin Kan
And sure, yeah. I think like everybody know, we’re paying attention today. I think it’s hard to know where the gains are going to be in the market. Like I think it might be the case. Like, you know, I’ve seen a lot of pitches for companies that are like, really? I, you know, something like that. Right. But then the question is like, can intercom roll out features faster than you can add a new customer base?

00;19;42;25 – 00;20;04;26
Justin Kan
I think for a lot of new products, you know, the A.I. version is going to be like the people who already saw that pull out features of your product. And so I just spent a lot of time trying to think about what are new products that you can invent, what you can create now, like completely new products where you can aggregate a new customer base with a I, I know I spent months thinking about it.

00;20;04;26 – 00;20;17;03
Justin Kan
I have one idea actually that I might incubate, but I won’t inspire like a roomful of competitors. I think it’s an idea. It’s unsexy. You’ll never you’ll never get it.

00;20;17;06 – 00;20;17;19
Eddie Huang
So.

00;20;17;19 – 00;20;51;11
Justin Kan
Boring, so corporate and boring. You’ll never be like you would never work on that. But yeah, so I mean, I think a lot of the gains of AI have gone like right out of like lower the stock on video stock and stuff like that. So I think for startups it’s kind of hard to know, like, is this a feature that is just going to roll out or is this just kind of like a marginal thing that’s like, you know, maybe you’re making a marginal improvement to the point like a lot of know about getting like, you know, training data.

00;20;51;12 – 00;21;08;21
Justin Kan
And I think a lot of people are kind of making marginal improvements to open AI or the other ideas. But when there’s another generation, women like maybe it’ll, you know, won’t be that differentiated. That would be my worry about people doing right now.

00;21;08;23 – 00;21;26;06
Chriselle Lim
Yeah, Yeah. I think that makes a ton of sense and I think the the data element and how data is just evolving is a core piece. And the amount of data we’ve created in the past two years compared to the past two decades, the volume is just increasing exponentially, which is pretty wild.

00;21;26;06 – 00;21;47;16
Justin Kan
Yeah, I think I think you want to think about if you think about any AI business, you think about like what? Where is like they’re, you know, created as kind of a natural exhaust from the usage of the product. So like Tock is a really good example because you know, this algorithm determine, you know, what it crucial what video and what what works in your usage of tick tock is implicitly giving data back to them.

00;21;47;16 – 00;22;07;26
Justin Kan
Right. Like you said, you use like if you watch a video for one second, it’s like, I mean, that video recommendation was bad, right? You watch it all the way to the end or multiple times. That means it was good, you know, kind of implicitly. And so, you know, products like that where the usage creates a unique dataset because, you know.

00;22;07;28 – 00;22;32;06
Chriselle Lim
Yeah, Tiktok’s algorithm is spot on for me, which is terrifying. And Chris, all I know we can’t have favorite children, but you’re, you’re on YouTube, you’re on Instagram. There is so many different social platforms, you know, that are constantly emerging to help, you know, creators build their audiences, grow their businesses, tap into data in different ways. Are you using different tools in different aspects, or are you tapping into different audiences through different platforms?

00;22;32;06 – 00;22;58;27
Chriselle Lim
How are you thinking about that? Yeah, so I’ve kind of monetized all the platforms from blogging, you TEDTalk, Instagram. And right now our main focus is really to persuade TikTok and Instagram. But I think it’s really Tik Tok that has democratized the fashion beauty space because I am a brand owner, a beauty brand owner, but all of them are creators.

00;22;58;27 – 00;23;34;14
Chriselle Lim
I see both sides. And what’s interesting is just a few years ago, like let’s say five years ago, a new brand like Fluor, like myself can never get into the doors of these massive fashion houses or these retailers like Nordstrom, Selfridges, Harrods, like international retailers. But with the evolution of the digital space, it’s really given the voice to the people and it’s really has shown the retailer, the people who hold the technically the power, the buyers of what people want.

00;23;34;14 – 00;23;54;09
Chriselle Lim
And so now when you go to these mega stores, you’ll see more hip hop hyped brands on the space than you do, you know, the traditional brands. Right. And for me, that’s really exciting because that shows you that there’s still room and there’s still space because I hear this so much like, Oh, it’s too crowded, I can’t start now.

00;23;54;09 – 00;24;13;19
Chriselle Lim
I’m like, No, it’s not crowded. You know, you just have to find what your audience, your niche audience wants and you serve that audience. And these big guys need people like you. They need that. There’s so much competition and they need people to come to their stores, right? And so we have the power now. We the creators have the power.

00;24;13;19 – 00;24;35;14
Chriselle Lim
We have the ability to be like, this is what my audience want. And you guys need that. And so for me, I love TikTok for that reason. That’s really how I got on the map. And now we can just get requests from every single retailer that you can think of because they want that audience. One of the questions that comes up, I think, with consumer brands is whether TikTok actually drives conversion.

00;24;35;14 – 00;24;53;15
Chriselle Lim
And I think what you’re you’re sharing is that it truly does and is a differentiator for the business overall. How have you thought about do you find that you have different audiences on different platforms who are interested in different types of content when you’re serving them, or do you find that it’s pretty consistent regardless of the technology you’re using?

00;24;53;22 – 00;25;10;13
Chriselle Lim
I think it’s different, but I think I always love that you have to have a36 year approach. So TikTok, they might see something, all TikTok, but they might not immediately purchase. But then they see it on Instagram and then they see it on TikTok again. So the I always, if they need to see it three times, at least four them after purchase something.

00;25;10;13 – 00;25;33;24
Chriselle Lim
So brands have to have a36 year approach. Just because you hire an influencer does not mean that you’re going to sell a lot of product. They have to be able to see it in multiple different places. And so for us, TikTok has worked, but it’s also because we’re everywhere as well. So I think people kept think So then you’re like, Oh, this is where I’m going to invest all my advertising dollars.

00;25;33;24 – 00;25;43;12
Chriselle Lim
And you kind of have to do a little bit of everything, though. That makes sense. And then just in our how are you using TikTok?

00;25;43;15 – 00;26;07;03
Justin Kan
I’m a I’m quite an entrepreneur. Content four for the locals. I don’t really I don’t know. I feel like I do because I just made content on our site. So I start making YouTube videos a couple of years ago because someone, a friend of mine was like, Hey, you should make YouTube videos. And I was like, It sounds like a lot of work.

00;26;07;03 – 00;26;25;29
Justin Kan
I don’t know. And she said, If I just got a camera and was like telling stories, she would cut everything and post and like, do all right. So I was like, I get by and I try and luckily, like one of the few ones went like was pretty popular among the community of like, entrepreneurs, you know, it’s like Tech Week.

00;26;26;01 – 00;26;50;21
Justin Kan
That’s my like, that’s my whole business that’s popular and like very specific neighborhoods of like San Francisco and Los Angeles. And so, yeah, I just was having fun with it. I got a lot of positive feedback. Someone said like, oh, like after like the first couple of videos, I got an email from an entrepreneur. I was like, You know, your videos inspired me to really change, you know, my life as a founder.

00;26;50;21 – 00;27;12;25
Justin Kan
And I’m like meditating on my co-founder lesson. I’m like healthy lifestyle. So I was like, That’s pretty awesome, you know? So I just do it for fun. I guess it’s kind of Li Jen for my DC business. Maybe, maybe not Legion. It’s more like mid funnel as like the people who are like top like they don’t. I know most of the people who I invest in our people.

00;27;12;25 – 00;27;30;14
Justin Kan
Well, I prefer, but I think people want me to invest because they maybe watch the videos sometimes it’s like and I’m pretty authentic about my both the wins and also losses. You know, I like saw this other company raise $75 million and we just like immolated that money. So I mean, a video about it, I was like, you want to fuck up?

00;27;30;14 – 00;27;46;29
Justin Kan
And I think people were surprised that I was like, when I met that I fucked up at all, you know, but also in specifics. And so a lot of entrepreneurs see that. They’re like, Oh man, he’s like, you know, real. He’s a real guy. He’s like, This will be before I see the movie. So like, I want him to invest in me.

00;27;46;29 – 00;27;53;00
Justin Kan
That’s that’s kind of how you do it. Now, the other thing is I’m trying to promote my fledgling deejay career.

00;27;53;02 – 00;27;54;18
Eddie Huang
And.

00;27;54;20 – 00;28;09;21
Justin Kan
Then over there we have a we have a group called So and we’ve not really any. And so now I have to convert all this audience that’s there for the entrepreneur content type music fan, which is.

00;28;09;23 – 00;28;10;21
Eddie Huang
It’s an.

00;28;10;23 – 00;28;13;18
Justin Kan
Open question.

00;28;13;20 – 00;28;15;04
Chriselle Lim
Exact CEO is.

00;28;15;06 – 00;28;16;12
Eddie Huang
Exactly.

00;28;16;15 – 00;28;17;10
Chriselle Lim
Like.

00;28;17;12 – 00;28;37;17
Justin Kan
I met David Song and I told him it was my inspiration. I was I was skiing and asked to be the first guy bullshit, but I was. And I’m telling my other friend randomly, I was like, You know, if David Solomon could do it, you know, he’s the CEO of Goldman Sachs, also didn’t like David Solomon so we could do it.

00;28;37;17 – 00;28;45;05
Justin Kan
I could do it. And he’s like, if David Solomon, one of the most successful people on Earth, can do it, you can do it because.

00;28;45;07 – 00;28;45;28
Eddie Huang
You know.

00;28;46;00 – 00;29;04;23
Justin Kan
Coincidentally, I met him that night. He was there skiing with his cousin, who’s a friend of mine. And and I was went up to him and I’m like, man, you inspired me to become a deejay. I was like, he was like, Everyone should have more music. Good gracious.

00;29;04;25 – 00;29;10;17
Chriselle Lim
Inspiration can come from anywhere They go hunting the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Mm hmm.

00;29;10;20 – 00;29;12;20
Eddie Huang
Mm hmm.

00;29;12;23 – 00;29;31;22
Chriselle Lim
Um, Eddie, we’ve talked a little bit about, you know, short term content on different platforms. And one of the things that you’re doing is building out longer form content. You know, books, TV shows, films. How are you thinking about that evolving over the next few years? Where do you see opportunity for storytelling within that?

00;29;31;24 – 00;29;54;28
Eddie Huang
Yeah, and like, I don’t have access to any data or metrics, so but the thing that life and like you think my taste is, is like if everyone’s going that way, I will go that way. But I just remember, you know, like, like growing up, my dad grew up in the neighborhood of the original things happening in like Taipei.

00;29;55;00 – 00;30;12;26
Eddie Huang
And I remember going there once and I believe it was my grandpa that was just like, you know, I never eat here. I was like, Why is like the lines too long? And it’s pretty much the same next door, right? I look next door and you could just sit down and get anything you wanted, whatever you want. And I was like, That makes sense.

00;30;12;27 – 00;30;38;01
Eddie Huang
I was always just like the next door. I’d rather go to the number two and like for me, I see everybody got really short form content, like 15 seconds, 12 seconds, whatever. And so I was like, Let me make a really long show of YouTube with like tons of awkward pauses, like, don’t edit it at all. So that’s my method.

00;30;38;03 – 00;30;41;29
Eddie Huang
I’ve got that many views, but I.

00;30;42;02 – 00;30;42;10
Eddie Huang
Like.

00;30;42;10 – 00;31;06;09
Eddie Huang
When people want dinosaur food on site, like I’ll be there on YouTube doing it. It’s just fun and I feel like even it’s to me, it’s to me at this point in my career, it’s not about like winning or getting the most views. It’s just like offering a variety of service. If I see everybody else doing something, I’m like, Look, I feel like maybe the the world could use some the opposite, you know?

00;31;06;09 – 00;31;28;05
Eddie Huang
I just like, I like physics. I think physics is something you can’t deny. So it’s just like if everybody is going one way and you care about the world you live in, you probably maybe try the other way. You know, I don’t know. I got no data. Like he got insane content from the entire talk.

00;31;28;08 – 00;31;31;26
Eddie Huang
Yeah, I had that good.

00;31;31;28 – 00;31;33;17
Chriselle Lim
Love for content.

00;31;33;19 – 00;31;37;02
Eddie Huang
He’s doing and.

00;31;37;05 – 00;31;38;05
Eddie Huang
He’s to a dinosaur.

00;31;38;11 – 00;31;39;28
Eddie Huang
Constantly.

00;31;40;00 – 00;31;43;29
Chriselle Lim
Raised as a thing. Is there? I think longform content is coming back, so you might need to go.

00;31;44;06 – 00;31;44;12
Eddie Huang
From.

00;31;44;15 – 00;31;44;19
Chriselle Lim
That.

00;31;44;19 – 00;31;52;18
Eddie Huang
But yeah, I mean, yeah, I feel like one is cool. I would love to read some of these blogs, like Zynga, like, Oh.

00;31;52;21 – 00;32;12;22
Chriselle Lim
Yeah, So like, this is what I believe is that it’s all like, whether it’s fashion, digital food, whatever it is, it’s always a pendulum swing. So the pendulum swung really far where it short form everything, everything. If it’s longer than 15 seconds, forget it. Right? But I think we’ve been living in that for the past few years, especially during pandemic.

00;32;12;22 – 00;32;22;09
Chriselle Lim
But I think now people are craving more storytelling and it’s so hard to storytelling in a short form content. So I see the trends actually moving back towards long form content.

00;32;22;14 – 00;32;26;17
Eddie Huang
Yeah, I’m yeah, I had no idea. I’ve really.

00;32;26;20 – 00;32;29;20
Eddie Huang
Listened.

00;32;29;23 – 00;32;36;05
Eddie Huang
To 15 seconds more about you. Like I remember when all the homies were trying to meet girls on like Instant Messenger.

00;32;36;06 – 00;32;38;03
Eddie Huang
But.

00;32;38;05 – 00;32;51;03
Eddie Huang
They were just talking like, Yo, I need to see a single page. I need to see like what your favorite color is when you sign it. I you know, the whole Carfax concept.

00;32;51;06 – 00;32;57;18
Chriselle Lim
And that he was being modest. He just had boogie, which is a huge success in certainly like five.

00;32;57;18 – 00;32;58;18
Eddie Huang
Minutes really.

00;32;58;18 – 00;32;59;16
Eddie Huang
Long.

00;32;59;18 – 00;33;06;15
Eddie Huang
And then film is ancient, you know, like, I don’t know, I love it. I will die for the cinema.

00;33;06;17 – 00;33;29;10
Chriselle Lim
And all of the the tech platforms that help distribute it are not. And so they’re a it’s a pendulum in a different way. So I know we’re going to approach time soon. So I want to make sure everyone has a chance to see some parting thoughts. If you in a skate round could share what you’re most scared of in technology and what you’re most excited about in technology right now as it relates to the creator economy.

00;33;29;12 – 00;33;32;16
Chriselle Lim
Justin, Go throw that one out.

00;33;32;16 – 00;33;35;03
Justin Kan
I was scared of and what I’m most excited about.

00;33;35;03 – 00;33;36;07
Chriselle Lim
Yeah.

00;33;36;10 – 00;33;57;05
Justin Kan
I guess they’re probably the same thing, which is like all those smart friends of mine, I think there’s like a non-zero chance that A.I. kills us all stretch to me, but like, a lot of smart people seem to think about it. They’re like, seem to be saying it, you know? But they also said all these cryptos would work.

00;33;57;07 – 00;34;27;00
Justin Kan
So, I mean, I’m kind of like, I don’t know how to feel about it. That’s maybe what I’m most scared of, I guess Then like in terms of excited about maybe they’re like, I feel like, yeah, I’m going to usher in this, you know, has as also a pretty high chance of ushering in this era of global prosperity, where we all have these robots that do everything that we want done, at least as long as it can be like expressed it a written string of characters.

00;34;27;02 – 00;34;31;17
Justin Kan
But yeah, I don’t know. That’s I mean, that’s what I’m excited about right now.

00;34;31;19 – 00;34;59;04
Chriselle Lim
So I don’t know if it’s being scared of, but I definitely feel like there’s a lot of sameness happening right now in everyone just copying each other. There’s a lot of whether it be on content or fashion and beauty. And so it’s like how much more of that do we need? So that’s kind of frustrating, right? But what I’m excited about is, is just that as I mentioned before, it’s the power to the people.

00;34;59;04 – 00;35;07;05
Chriselle Lim
Now. It’s really we get to demand what we want to see, what we want to buy, what we want to see on the shelves. And I think we’re going to see more of that in the coming years.

00;35;07;05 – 00;35;36;08
Eddie Huang
So, yeah, I mean, I agree with everything they said. And also just to say like, I think I like to boil things down to like the smallest grain. And it is I think I think what drives every single human being, if we take the time to acknowledge it, is that we all want human connection, everything is about human connection, getting rich, getting whatever you do all these things because it allows you to survive.

00;35;36;10 – 00;35;58;20
Eddie Huang
It gives you more time on the clock to make human connections. And I think when we look at technology, I think people stare at it and they argue about it. My question is always, is this actually giving us more opportunity to create genuine human interaction or is it preventing it? Is it watering it down? Is it cheapening it?

00;35;58;23 – 00;36;23;02
Eddie Huang
I don’t know if I want any technology, robots, A.I., whatever, if it’s freeing us up to make more genuine human connections, if it’s not, it creates more work for us. If it makes the workday longer, it it widens the income inequality gap. And that is a terrible technology. But if it brings people together, genuinely, I’m all for it.

00;36;23;04 – 00;36;42;05
Chriselle Lim
And that’s a fantastic Segway because right after this, we’ll have some networking for all of you to make human connections with each other and out into the courtyard. But before that, I want to give a huge round of applause for our incredible.

00;36;42;08 – 00;36;43;02
Moderator
Thank you so much.

00;36;43;02 – 00;37;07;29
Chriselle Lim
Justin Purcell and Eddie thank you to called House. Thank you actually right after this in the in the courtyard we’re going to have several different brands that we’re really excited for you guys to try in the food space. Many of them are Pacific founders or creator founders within YouTube’s umbrella. And so please go try them. Please check them out if you enjoy them and think they taste good, go buy a ton of them.

00;37;08;06 – 00;37;15;12
Chriselle Lim
Go Mashable. You go follow all of them on every social media platform. Listen to Justin’s new DJ career by his name.