 And because people are asking for the context of music, should I try to get on Rambo as early as a platform? So here are the rules. One, when a platform is early and you're early in your career, you can't just assume, oh, I'm gonna grow with the platform. I'm gonna be early and I'm gonna make it to the top of the platform. And then as other people come on, I'm gonna be at the top of the game and everybody's gonna show me love and that's how I'm gonna grow and blow up. It sounds good. And a lot of people look at that first mover advantage as a justification to hop on these platforms, but there's a few things to consider. One, doesn't even make sense for you to be on that platform in the context of what people are there to consume. When I'm looking at Rambo right now, just going through the pages, a lot of it is based on like news, commentary, like talking head type stuff, which is cool, but that's not music. So people aren't there in the mindset of I'm going to consume music again, right? So if you can somehow work your way in to commentary with music. Yeah, you have to be like a special type of artist. Yeah, you gotta be a special type of artist, right? You might be conscious in the way that this platform, their consumers think of conscious, right? Talking to all of those issues in that way. Maybe you do that. Or maybe you just look at it like, I'm going to plug my music in between those shows. I'm going to hit up all the people on this platform and see if I can get my music to be a part of their intro or backtrack or whatever, something like that. So do you belong on this platform? What do people consume on this platform? Are they're not there for you or some version of you? Eh, that's pretty tough, right? Another thing to consider. Will this platform even be around long? That's a huge thing to think about, right? Yeah, I think of it as a lot. Rumble, I think so, right? But I'm just talking in general, right? Because people ask is every time there's a new platform that pops, right? They did that with Triller, right? I knew Triller wasn't going to be around. I was trying to tell people. But then we can kind of go into even some of the house because it relates to this conversation. But is the platform going to be around long? Well, it's hard to make that analysis if you don't know what to look for, right? People kind of felt that way about TikTok. And some people felt that way about Triller. They're like, oh, well, TikTok's not going to be around that long. I don't know about this new thing. Triller's going to be around. Look at all these investments that keep happening. Look at all these brand deals they keep happening and da, da, da. All these artists keep posting on it. So the industry is like, oh man, Kenji Lamar is involved and all these other artists and these artists that get paid to post on there, they keep seeing these faces, thinking that that actually means something. That doesn't mean something. I know that there's this idea of clout and what clout can do. But when it comes to technology and even brands, but especially technology, clout does not have the level of equity that you would think it does in terms of something popping and lasting. You might get a little bit of initial attention, but change behavior, nah, it's not as real as you would think it would or as we would love it to be. So don't just think you can get a bunch of influencers and then blow a brand up. It's not how it works. And I don't even mean like random influencers. I'm talking about like Kevin Hart, fucking, you know, The Rock, whatever, Uzi, whoever, right? It can happen. It can 100% happen. But there's more to it. You have to look at the actual platform, not just the influencers. Because the influencers, if right in the right audience and da, da, da, da, it can make the initial attention happen, but translating that into something lasting is different. So if you look at Triller, technologically, they were behind TikTok on just a user experience, right? Me consuming the things that are gonna make me stay on the platform and keep me interested on the platform. They were behind. Also, the growth of TikTok happened. So fast, they were so aggressive to get to so many users, you have the network effect. Once you get past a certain threshold of users, one, it has greater utility, meaning it's more useful, right? If there's only one person with a cell phone, it ain't that meaningful, you know what I'm saying? You got a thousand people with a cell phone. Okay, you got a hundred thousand people with a cell phone. Now you're like literally changing behavior in the way the world can interact. TikTok took off, they got to that way faster than Triller actually never fully got to that and what you needed in today's world because you also have to consider it's not just, oh, I got 20 million users. That would have been great back in the day, but now you got 20 million users when Facebook already has a billion type thing. So you're talking about transitioning people from other platforms or telling them to make more time. So that becomes less, like if a platform can hit that number, that threshold, and it varies depending on what you're looking at, but if a platform can hit the network effects, then not only is it more useful meaning people will probably stay on, that means legitimate culture can start being established and when culture is being established then you have certain behaviors that pertain specifically to that platform. We talked about it the other day. YouTube shorts, great. It's probably gonna do well because people are already on YouTube, so you just have to change your behavior a little bit. If you can get it to move, it can move, but that culture is not going to evolve into what TikTok's culture is gonna be. So when people want the TikTok culture, they're gonna go to TikTok, you know what I'm saying? Like, oh yeah, you can open a new club in town, all right? But I'm gonna go to you when I went to EDM Vibe and you're not gonna kill this, like, I don't know, street underground vibe. It's just two different energies. So I go to you for different things, right? Hang out with different friends, for different interests. That's all it is. Like these platforms are literally people's friends. That's kinda how you might as well think of it, right? And then also when you look at the network effect in terms of the amount of people, you wanna look at SoundCloud as well where I knew SoundCloud wasn't gonna just disappear. You remember when that happened? If you were like, is SoundCloud gonna die completely? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's been a minute. That almost- Well, like 2018, something like that. Honestly, I can't believe I actually just randomly remembered that. Like, I pulled that out of there. I hate trying to be beat. I ain't thought about that. It was saying that was Snapchat. It was saying that was Snapchat. Snapchat too, it was, right? So that's perfect. The reason those have still stood the test of time is because they got to so many people. When you have that many people on the platform, these companies ain't about to just let that many users die. All right? Like that's a lot of data. Or even MySpace was still- MySpace was still around. So it's still useful to, from an investor and business side, it's hard to just let that go. It's very likely that you're gonna find some more money. Oh, they say money's a problem. They'll probably find some more money. The founder might not like how much comes with that money, right? The terms of that money, but there's gonna be some more money to be found. Or they just gonna sell the data. Or they just gonna sell the data. They always got a data slip, bro. They all got it. Exactly, exactly. And that's a part of all of them at this point. So, but if it doesn't have these things at the moment, then how can you make that, be sure that it's gonna stay on? Then you have to start looking at the likelihood that a platform will be around based off of, maybe the need in the marketplace, like opportunities in the marketplace. And I say all these things because, like artists are truly making their career decisions off of this. And you gonna dedicate a whole year to a platform and then ain't shit ever happen. Like people did that with, what was the other one? I thought she was gonna say Triller, yeah. Triller? No, I was gonna say the other Triller, but then I said, then I was like no, it was like Triller. I was thinking it was like a star with like a V or something. Dudsmash or something. Oh shit, I forgot about Dudsmash. Dudsmash. But that just unlocked a part of my brain that just been dormant. That shit was crazy. That's what I was saying. That's what I was saying. It happened and it'd be blips of time and people would be so excited about this stuff. Like a fun summer. A fun summer, not a one night stand, but it was a fun summer. Fun summer, which real quick digression, did you know that DC on fire blew up on Vine? Yeah, yeah. I was there, bro. I watched that shit. Vine where he blew up. I probably, I was seeing the videos when he blew up, but I didn't realize I was watching on Vine. It was like one of the things you just kind of start to see him everywhere. Now you don't remember where you discovered it. I didn't know it was Vine. It was Autumn. Like him, Caleb, I don't know if you know Caleb City. Yeah, Caleb City. There was one more big one. Oh, King Bash, y'all. I knew King Bash was, yeah, yeah. Him, I remember his girl that blew up on Vine too. But yeah, so let me take a quick second to say if you're an artist trying to blow your music up or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you and it's completely free. As you may know, we've helped multiple artists go from zero to hundreds of thousands of streams. We've helped multiple artists go from hundreds of thousands to millions of streams, chart on Billboard, GoViral, all of that stuff. And we've now made the way we branded multiple artists and helped them GoViral completely free step by step in Brandman Network. All you have to do is check out brandmannetwork.com. You apply, it's completely free. But the thing is, we're not gonna let everybody in forever. So the faster you apply, the better your chance of getting accepted. Brandmannetwork.com, check it out, back to the video. Those, like all that stuff you wanna really think through before you like, just put your career out there on the platform. You might dip your toe on it, but it's better for a newer artist to just learn the platforms that are short and then take some chances on new platforms unless you literally have nothing going on on the current platform that you're on. So now it's like, hey, let me just risk it all for a moment, try this for three, four months. And then what factors are worth taking at risk? Well, when you see something like what TikTok was doing, the discoverability and people going viral so fast, now it's like, oh, this is a new platform? But, hey, it's getting people found, like for real, for real. Not this, oh, if I dedicate myself to it for long enough and I'm gonna slowly become big. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, as the platform gets bigger, I'm gonna get bigger. It's like, no, this moment is happening now. TikTok is a kingmaker, queenmaker, or at least like viral moment maker now. I gotta take advantage of this now. And that's what happened early on with TikTok. So you have people dedicating. And it was worth that time, especially the amount of time that you had to invest to get that viral moment was such a contraction versus how much it took on other platforms. It was worth it to at least see, right? So if you have any signs of discoverability on a platform like that, then it's worth going to take that risk. But not just, oh, this is a platform that's building up and people are doing well, they like it. Not all that, you're not thinking about that. You're thinking about your career. You don't care about these fucking platforms. These platforms are only a vehicle for you to get yourself out there and communicate your message and then bring home some money through the platform. And send out that attention, let the content be a little army that collects people, throws them in the bag, brings them to your cash register, cash is out, you know, goes into your listening form, listen to your music and then put some back into the universe, right? That's what you're there for. Platforms are only your way of doing it. So don't get too married to any of the platforms. And when you make decisions for platforms, use some of the principles that we just went through. Yeah, I feel like ours got a kind of a plot of, what is it, the Pareto's principle? The 80-20? The 80-20, right? I look at, you already kind of touched on it, but there are certain platforms that in today moving forward, but we know are not, more than likely not going anywhere, right? Like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, I would throw a TikTok in there. These are platforms where it would take a lot for them to die out. Oh, okay, you mean going like not dying out? Yeah, not dying out. Not like not going, yeah, yeah. But not dying out, right? So these become like the safe best, right? Hey, I may not be able to grow as fast on here as maybe this new thing, but rest assured if I put the work in, like something will come from it, right? Cause the foundation has already been laid. So I, cause I do think there's a, that delicate balance, especially in music between right, like, how do you make sure you don't miss out on the next thing? Because we know music changes every time a damn new app drops, you know what I'm saying? Like, and all it takes is the right app to completely change the culture and shift it, right? We saw that with TikTok. TikTok's probably the most recent I would say to show us that, right? So I think everything you said is like, is true in that. And I know like even outside of that, one of the biggest things, or two of the biggest things I look at before like fully investing in a new platform is one, are there people I know in real life talking about it, right? Because like you said, like Kevin Hart posting on Get Me Over There, bro. I know Kevin Hart got it back, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not stupid, right? But if I see like, oh, my little sister and like her friends are on it, right? And I'm like, oh, shit, that's the app I just heard about a lot. And they're usually like, you know, my roommates bring it up or something. Like it makes it more real for me. I can see the people that are on it. And then based on that, decide if I need to be that, right? My grandma will tell me about a new app. Mm, you know what I'm saying? But like my, my... Wait, why not your grandma? That's a real person? My grandma, am I target demographic? You're not your, all right. That's not just target demographic, but it can be a symbol of how big and real the conversation. Okay, that's fair. Like she's talking about you like, dang, how did she hear about that? Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. You know, it's still like a, it's a pretty strong indicator, but there's something to brew. I'll say that. So it might not be the decision-maker. You know, it's something to brew. I think my grandma actually does watch. What? Yeah. She didn't watch a couple of my videos. See, I thought about this the other day, man. I said, I gotta stop cursing so much in these videos. My grandma know what's up, bro. You know, grandma, you know what's up. Avery, you know, I'm sure. If you hear this now, grandma, you know what's up. Avery, man, I'm still, you know, like got a little bit of that old Southern with me where it's like, all right, yeah, you can know I curse, but I'm probably not cursing a whole bunch around you. No, bro, I need them. Is this not as comfortable? They know, bro. They know what's up. Yeah, I need them. Are you leaning into the curve? Yeah, a hundred percent, bro. A hundred percent, bro. I mean, I ain't not in a disrespect way, but I was like, Avery, I'm on. This ain't directed at you. I need you to know this is the type of lifestyle your grandson will be living. When he's not home for things to give him dinner, you know what I'm saying? I don't want a lot of my grandma. You know what I'm saying? I like it. I love her too much for that, you know? See, my grandma, I could get with that, but she can't, my mom can't, that's what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My mom liked that, she ain't had nothing out of that, bro. You the devil, definitely the devil there where it's gonna be. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and to the second point, you just touched on it a little bit. The second thing I look at before deciding if a platform is worth investing in is how many conversations get created around that platform, right? Like how much is it being talked about? Because to go back to your point about TikTok and Triller, one of the biggest things I think that TikTok had over Triller was they were a conversation starter. You go back to 2018, 2019, there was, you know, first there was like, Lil Nas X and then Arizona Zervis, we started the whole conversation of, oh shit, is TikTok gonna be this new thing for the music? Right, that's a whole, that's a conversation being started, right? And then we go into, it's just safe for kids, there was that whole debate, right? And just the content being pushed on there. And there was the China, you know what I'm saying? Not China thing, but Trump, China been it, right? It was like all of these different conversations popping up around the app that let you know, like, hey, this is way more relevant outside of just the app store and even the people that are using it. And if we know anything about people, is that eventually curiosity kicks in. And if you keep hearing about something, whether good or bad, eventually a part of you wants to go check it out, which means that, which is basically the funnel, right? And then we know eventually those people are gonna convert and it goes back to all things you say, like, is the user experience cool? Do we feel like it replaces something that we, or not replaced, but does it feel a gap that we don't already have right? But these things drive people to the point to even get to make that decision. And like Triller didn't have any of that, you know what I'm saying? Maybe outside of like the only real conversation I remember around Triller at that time was when someone was saying they were like botting traffic on the platform, right? And that became like a whole thing, which is a terrible conversation to start off with. As a newer platform, right? It's a terrible conversation, but TikTok had like so many like polarizing narratives hitting at the same time. I remember like Twitter was the same way when it first came out, Facebook was the same way when it first came out, YouTube was like that when it came out. Like it started all these like real world conversations and you could see it like pushing certain buttons in real life that just like anybody understands, I think people, you know that eventually, but people are gonna stick with this shit, you know what I'm saying? Because polarizing conversations creates people that really stand for it and people that hate it. And that to me is one of the things that makes a good platform kind of stick is that polarity of it. Like you need people to shit on it. You just don't want an overwhelming amount of people shitting on it, you know what I'm saying? Just enough that it's spicy, you know what I'm saying? Not enough that that shit runs everybody away from it, you know what I'm saying? So I look at those as like all the things you said, is that somebody in real life I know, using it and then do those people represent the demographic I'm looking for? Like you said, or do they even represent that this thing is ascended beyond just the niche that it's even targeting? And then we're like, what is being talked, is that platform even being talked about? Not just in terms of like users and usability, but like what are the actual conversations being started because this app is in the marketplace because people only make conversations around things they think are important or can make an impact. It's neither of those things that we don't talk about it, you know what I'm saying? At least not not general consumers, but like, you know, like news outlets and kind of like the public at home. So that's always like led me in the right direction. The only time it failed me, that was this app in college called Yik Yak. That was pretty crazy. I thought it was gonna blow up. I don't know who Yik Yak was. I thought Yik Yak was gonna be crazy. That shit died off. It was something that I was... It was like sold just in time. I had in relation to it. Either I knew the founders were in one of my programs. It was something like something close to the cuff where I was around it a lot, an accelerator or something I used to go to or something. I don't know if they had all these companies. And that was a dope app concept. The thing that pushed them over the edge though, I believe was it was all the bullying and stuff that was occurring. And they got hit with that kind of issue too early. Yeah, exactly. Too negative over conversations too early. Too negative, yeah. But one thing that you said that I want to kind of codify for people because you were kind of touching on it when you talked about your grandma or like little sister talking about something. It's about not just people in your real life but people that are out of your bubble in music. Right? Yeah, that's another very important thing. Specifically. Because Triller seemed really big to people who are in music. You know, you hear a lot of people talking about it but it wasn't touching the real life, the regular people. It's the same way when I would talk about like industry plans, something like go ask your regular like person like your sister or your brother or that's not in music what an industry plan is. Most people I never heard of something like that, right? Like that's how you can really gauge the relevance of a lot of these things. Cause you want to, I don't want to say real people cause you know, being in the music industry you are a real person but you lose some of your real personhood in terms of market accuracy in terms of how you judge it, right? Like you can't gauge another music person's like something's quality off of another music person cause they just, they're as much in the sauce as you are. Right? So there's that. And then the last thing is the company's decision making process. If you look at their moves, now you have to have a little bit more of a complex understanding of business probably to truly get it. But when Triller did the boxing match, I said, oh shit, this is horrible. It's over for Triller. All right? And that was a big moment to people when they sponsored a boxing match but it just comes from tech. I'm like, this makes no sense for them to do. Like this is a reach, right? This is like I'm dying and we trying to find some oxygen. When they purchased versus, I said, oh shit, Triller is still fucked. All right? Because what it looked like was we don't know who we are anymore. Like we're losing this TikTok battle for just the pure tech and what that looks like. So we're trying to figure out another form of monetization to make this business viable and attractive at least on the backend how investors might be looking at it, things like that. Right? So, you know, like I said, it might be a little bit more difficult to just call that out with businesses. But in contrast, I see TikTok create an ad platform, right? Where you can create run ads for yourself as a regular consumer or a personal user just like you can do on Facebook. Oh, that's investing in the right direction. Saw them make moves where the creator funds, you see them do things like they had this platform where you could try to search their influencers on the platform, right? The creator marketplace or whatever it's called, right? And I think that's still around. It was poorly done and I didn't think that was gonna last because I had seen so many people try to do it and it's just a hard, hard thing to figure out. But at least their thinking is somewhere in this fear of what they were already selling, right? What is another move that TikTok did? See, even them just highlighting trends on the platform. Like TikTok showed that, hey, we are a platform that pay attention to our creators and we wouldn't give them the spotlight. Yes, everything was investing back in that core where Triller was just like. Cold music industry tool. Yeah, it was a music industry tool and they were making music industry moves, right? And it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't do what you needed to do. I don't go ahead and switch subject.