From Viral Photographer to Skincare Empire with His Daughter Salish

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next in Media - "From Viral Photographer to Skincare Empire with His Daughter Salish"

Host: Mike Shields
Guest: Jordan Matter (YouTuber, Entrepreneur, Creator)
Date: October 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

Mike Shields sits down with top creator Jordan Matter, whose journey traverses viral dance photography, YouTube stardom, and the development of a blockbuster skincare line with his daughter, Salish. The episode explores the evolution of digital content creation, authentic audience engagement, the pitfalls and possibilities of influencer brands, and the lessons from launching one of the biggest creator-led product events ever witnessed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Photographer to YouTube Creator

• Initial Motivation: Jordan began YouTube in 2017, filming himself photographing dancers. At first, it was just to provide transparency around his image creation (to counter Photoshop accusations) and create a platform to promote his upcoming dance photography book.
  • Quote ([01:41]): "I was showing the real process in order to prove that... I was not expecting to get any sort of virality."
• The 10-Minute Photo Challenge: To make photography visually compelling, Jordan invented the "10-minute photo challenge," where he tried to capture as many dynamic photos as possible in a set time frame.
• Organic Growth & Collaborations: Working with emerging dance and pop culture stars (e.g., Sophie Dossey, Charli D’Amelio), his channel leveraged both niche and mainstream appeal.

2. Transitioning to Family Content with Salish

• Evolving Content: Jordan’s daughter, Salish, a gymnast, started appearing in videos. Her inclusion coincided with rising engagement and enjoyment, gradually shifting the channel's focus from photography to father-daughter challenges and content.
  • Quote ([06:53]): "I think the most important part of YouTube is relationships…suddenly I had a relationship. People now saw me as a dad."
• Community Building: The audience, primarily young females, began to grow alongside Salish, creating a unique, authentic bond.
  • Quote ([07:04]): "[The viewers] need to feel like they're part of this with you."

3. The Business Side: Monetization & Brand Partnerships

• Learning Curves: Early partnerships (e.g., with MCNs like Studio71) were not favorable. Jordan warns creators:
  • Quote ([10:20]): "Don't anybody ever give a percentage of your channel to anybody."
• Brand Deals: Initial sponsorships often felt forced or didn't fit their values ("gaming...we don't game"), leading to selective acceptance of partnerships.
• Creator Brand Pitfalls: Many influencers chase quick money through unaligned product launches, sacrificing long-term trust. Jordan emphasizes authenticity and intentionality, citing creators who prioritize audience relationships and product fit (e.g., Ryan Trahan with Joyride).
  • Quote ([14:01]): "If you do it that way and you believe in the thing and there's a white space for it, you're much more likely to be successful."

4. The Skincare Line & Blockbuster Launch

• Why Skincare? Inspired by the "Sephora Kids" phenomenon—youths using adult skincare that damages their skin—Jordan and Salish sought to fill the market gap with effective, safe products designed "for young skin but also cool."
  • Quote ([18:30]): "All the products for skin care that were made for young skin are not cool. And...they want to feel cool, so they get that...but it's got retinol that rips their skin apart."
• Securing Sephora: Their pitch hinged on the unique depth of connection between digital creators and audience, compared to traditional celebrities:
  • Quote ([20:57], responding to 'Why would you be more successful than Ariana Grande?')
    Jordan: "Are you a fan of Ariana Grande?...What's the color of her bedroom?...our audience will know all those questions in a half second."

Major Launch Event at American Dream Mall

• Anticipation: Expected turnout was 1,000–5,000. Actual turnout: 87,000—a number nearly double Mr. Beast’s previous record.
  • Quote ([28:07]): "The highway was backed up...full on stop traffic jam."
• Demand Outstripped Supply: Only 5,000 units available, prompting disappointment and tears among fans who waited all night.
  • Quote ([29:47]): "So many people were there. Teen girls, 15 year olds sobbing because they couldn't get the product."
• Marketing Power: No paid media was used—only organic channel promotion.
  • Quote ([30:21]): "No, there was no paid media. We. We would mention it in our videos."

5. Reflections on Creator-Brand Relationships

• Authenticity Drives Longevity: Jordan credits the channel’s lasting power to a genuine relationship with the audience, focus on valuable content, and careful stewardship of Salish’s time and childhood.
  • Quote ([23:20]): "We prioritize retention, for sure, and storytelling, but we also prioritize relationships."
• Cautious Expansion: Despite immense demand and lucrative offers, Jordan plans to pursue no more than three major business ventures with Salish, emphasizing quality and balance over cashing in every opportunity.
  • Quote ([36:24]): "I do not want to inundate her with a bunch of work...I want her to look back on this time and go, I'm really glad we did that together. But I also got to experience my childhood."
• Vision for the Future: Aspirations include developing an animated show, potentially expanding into apparel or toys, but always resisting the temptation to over-commercialize.

6. Closing Thoughts

• Lessons Learned: Success came from building deep, authentic audience relationships, resisting industry pressure to over-monetize, and focusing on extraordinary product execution.
• Philosophy:
  • Quote ([40:10]): "None of them are problems. Just...choices."

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Viral Success and Audience Connection:
  • “[The viewers] need to feel like they're part of this with you.” (07:04, Jordan)
• On Influencer Brand Pitfalls:
  • “...they start flexing and then they need more money to pay for all that. And so then they try to release products...they want one of them to hit and all that.” (12:30, Jordan)
• On Creator-Fan Relationships vs. Celebrity:
  • "That's the difference between celebrity and influencer. Totally different relationships..." (21:01, Jordan)
• On Product Launch Overwhelm:
  • “There was a line of thousands of people just to get into the Sephora which only had 600 units sold out in an hour.” (28:33, Jordan)
• On Maintaining Integrity and Balance:
  • “But you have to think long term. So in our case, right now, I think we're in a unique situation where we can kind of call the shots of what we want.” (36:48, Jordan)

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Important Timestamps

• [01:11-02:32]: Jordan’s YouTube origin story and innovation with the 10-minute challenge.
• [06:00-07:38]: Transition from photography to father-daughter content; rise of deeper audience relationships.
• [10:07-12:05]: Early business lessons and warnings on MCNs and rushed brand deals.
• [17:51-19:53]: Decision to launch skincare, identifying an underserved audience.
• [20:57-22:17]: The importance of creator-fan intimacy vs celebrity, especially for retail success.
• [25:10-29:47]: Behind-the-scenes of the skincare line launch, crowd size, and product sellout.
• [36:05-37:17]: Strategy around new opportunities, emphasizing restraint, and preserving Salish’s childhood.

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Memorable Moments

• The Wild Launch Event:
  • The turnout of 87,000 people for a skincare launch, causing gridlock and overwhelming both organizers and security ([28:07]-[29:43]).
• Philosophy on Creator Brands:
  • Jordan's passionate critique of inauthentic influencer products and his insistence on quality over quantity ([14:01], [39:48]).
• Family Cameo:
  • Salish and Hudson unexpectedly join the recording, highlighting the authentic, unscripted nature of their collaboration ([34:27]).

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Summary & Takeaways

Jordan Matter’s journey from dance photographer to viral YouTube phenomenon and product entrepreneur with daughter Salish is a case study in authentic content, sustainable growth, and audience trust. His deliberate strategy—focusing on relationships, selective brand partnerships, and exceptional product development—led to a record-breaking, organic product launch. Through it all, Jordan models a modern creator’s ethos: ambition balanced by responsibility, authenticity above hype, and the wisdom to favor long-term value over short-term gains.

Transcript

[A]

So many people, teen girls, 15 year olds sobbing because they couldn't get the product. They didn't get to see Salish. They didn't get anything they had hoped for. But they had been up since 10pm or 5am waiting in line. The amount of like gratitude I have, like I can't even think about it without wanting to cry. I just. We've been working together for five years. Every week we put our head down, we say let's just make a great video this week. Never had any idea how much it was resonating. No clue. Like literally no clue. Turns out 87,000 people came. 87.

[B]

The beat is coming to JFK or something. Like people are just losing their minds.

[A]

It was twice what Mr. Beast got.

[B]

Hi everybody, welcome to NFC Media. I'm Mike Shields. I'm here with Jordan Matter. He is a top creator entrepreneur. Hey Jordan, thanks for being here.

[A]

Hi, thanks for having me.

[B]

Excited to talk to you because you bridge a lot of these different parts of the business that we're all super interested in here. I think a lot of people will know your name, know of you as a big YouTuber but maybe not know all the details unless they're a follower. It's probably. I'm sure this gets old but can you give us like a little bit of your journey, how you got started, who you are, how do you, how'd you get to be you?

[A]

Sure. I, I started doing YouTube videos back in 2017 where. And they were photography because I was doing dance photography at the time. I'm a photographer and so I started filming myself photographing dancers. And I didn't know anything about YouTube but I thought it would be cool just to get it on camera that.

[B]

To supplement other business or you think?

[A]

I'm like, it wasn't for revenue. There's two reasons. One was I had a book coming out later that year and I kind of wanted to have another social platform to promote it on.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And for people to start seeing the process that I was using to create that content because it was dance photography book. It was going to be my third one. And then secondly, I also wanted to prove that the photos were real because the dancers were so incredible that people assumed I was photoshopping it. So I was showing the real process in order to prove that. What I was not expecting to do was to get any sort of virality. I was not expecting to get any revenue or any subscribers.

[B]

That that part supposed to be maybe a short term thing and then, and then things change.

[A]

Yeah, it was, I mean I. I hadn't thought about how long it would be. More like, hey, can we get. There was one thing where if you could get 10,000 subscribers, then you get four free access to the Chelsea studios for YouTube. And we thought that would be kind of cool to have that access. But we're like, how? How would we get 10,000 subscribers? That's really hard. And Casey Neistat has famously said that's the hardest thing to do. The first 10,000.

[B]

The first 10,000, yeah.

[A]

But I came up with this concept based on the fact that photography is boring to watch, but the dancers are beautiful to watch. The photography process needs to be more exciting. So I created something called a 10 minute photo challenge, where I would give myself 10 minutes to get as many photos of a dancer as possible in a public environment. And so I would get there a little early, I'd scout it out, I'd see if I had any ideas. We would say go. We had one camera and me second GoPro on my camera for my POV and we would film for 10 minutes, see how many photos I'd get. And that was the extent of it. They were usually six to eight minute videos. I would post one every week and a lot of them went super viral because it was new, it was different, and I was using some well known dance moms, dancers, so it got some traction that way.

[B]

Okay, so you had that. Because I was gonna say, I'm assuming you probably went into it thinking there's a niche community, probably on YouTube, of people that will care about this, but maybe not something that would cross over. But it's obviously you had a nice connection with the dance mom thing and just maybe. Was this broader maybe than you expected?

[A]

I didn't expect anything. Honestly, I knew nothing about YouTube. I never watched it. I knew nothing. Nothing. This was in the day of the Logan Paul vlogs and Casey Neistat and everything. I was right.

[B]

It's a long time ago in YouTube time.

[A]

So then I started realizing, okay, first of all, I looked it up and they. And on Google and they said, you know, post once a week. And so I started posting once a week. And still now we post once a week. And I think consistency has been a big key. But we started doing every photo challenge every week. And then we started collabing with bigger names and then the videos got more popular because I was photographing popular people. It was all kind of perfect time because a lot of people that were very popular at the time were also very flexible, like Sophie Dossey, the Ribke Twins, Charli d', Amelio, Addison Rae. They all had dance backgrounds. And suddenly here comes this dance photographer who's asking, screaming to do crazy stuff. And the video only takes 10 minutes to film.

[B]

So why would this sort of thing. It lends itself to it very well.

[A]

Yeah, it lends itself to collabs, but at a certain point, you run out of collabs. Like, I can't really photograph somebody who doesn't do something performance related because there's nothing visually interesting. So then now we started repeating collab, and it started to get a little bit like, maybe we're running out of our thing here, but we built 5 million subscribers and almost a billion views on the photography. Now, my daughter at the time was 10, and she was very flexible. Very flexible. She's a gymnast. So every once in a while I would use her in a video instead. And she was shy, but she enjoyed being photographed. She liked hanging out. I love hanging out with her. Started seeing more engagement in those videos, and I had more fun because this is my little girl.

[B]

Wait, let me pause you right there at this point. Has it become a business yet? Are you making money from YouTube pre rolls, but not.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Brand stuff. What's going on? Okay.

[A]

Okay. So where we were at, we're probably averaging a couple million views per video. We were getting adsense, which we didn't even know to turn on for the first few months. Then we were getting the occasional brand deal, but not really. And.

[B]

But we were doing this cash, but it's not like.

[A]

But it was. It was very nice cash. I mean, my. My thing was I was a headshot photographer that I also did very well, but this became more than supplemental income at a certain point.

[B]

All right.

[A]

But again, not as, you know, these were back in the day, they were short videos. The monetization was much lower as a result, and, you know, once a week. So it was great that it was happening, but it wasn't so dramatic that I could quit my day job.

[B]

Right, right. Okay, so then it's all right. You. You. You say you. You bring your daughter into the mix.

[A]

Yeah. So. So this went on for about three years of me doing photography. The first year was supplemental. The next two was significant revenue. And by the time I started working with Salish, we had 5 million subscribers and we had great revenue. Like, we. I didn't need her for either views or revenue, as far as I could tell. Like, it was not a. It was more of a play of like, this is a new person I can work with who also Gives me great photos and she's my daughter, so I get to hang out with her and she's having fun. So it's a win, win, win. We didn't expect it to go on long. I would do a video with her and then two with somebody else, then the video with her. And I had so much more fun with the ones with her and they were being received better. Because now I think the most important part of YouTube is relationships. And I didn't have relationships in the photography. I just had individual collaborators every week. Suddenly I had a relationship. People now saw me as a dad and they really were starting to fall for me.

[B]

The viewers, the community starts to become.

[A]

Exactly. In order to keep longevity. It's about the relationships on camera and about the relationship with the audience.

[B]

They need to feel like they're part of this with you.

[A]

Exactly. They're. They're rooting for you. And you know, and, and so what I discovered is now I had somebody that was around their age, she was 10, 11, 12, you know, and they, they were growing up together. And the audience I already had was primarily female because I was doing dance with mostly female dancers. So the transition into her was seamless. And then at some point I just put down my camera. I didn't need to be a photographer anymore. And we would just do father daughter challenges.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It wasn't calculated. It wasn't like I said, oh, there's a lane tomorrow.

[B]

I'm becoming a creator. And that's it. Like exactly what my style is.

[A]

I mean, looking back. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. All family content was around a perfect family unit. It was like mother, father, ch. Two to six children. Right. And suddenly it was just a dad daughter. It was one very isolated, specific, what you would think, niche audience. But it turned out it wasn't very niche. And. And we had this lane that was completely wide open. So the first thing was I found this photography challenge lane and then I found a father daughter lane.

[B]

So you find. Yeah, like that's a convention on YouTube that you like was existing. But you said, let's plug in this.

[A]

The make it about it was not even that calculated. I'm just looking back and realizing we unintentionally discovered Elaine. What I really wanted was just to make videos with my daughter. And my son was doing his own thing at the time and my wife wasn't really down to be on camera much. So it really was like, it's this or nothing and it's awesome and I can keep photographing you. So for a long time they were photography challenges, but just with her. And then they became non photography challenges and that's where we're at to this day.

[B]

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[A]

You know, the way MCNS work, right? Like they pick off the young talent, not young by age, but young by YouTube. Right? Like new to YouTube. And so Studio71 approached me when we were just starting, like, oh, this is cool, right? They said we can help you with this, that we can help you build your channel. But they specifically said, like, we can help you with the backend on your channel to understand how to, how to optimize better.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that all sound great. Never really did it. And then they would try to get brand deals and maybe they got one, but they got a percentage of the thing. So don't anybody ever give a percentage of your channel to anybody? And we did it for the first year to Studio71. Terrible idea.

[B]

Didn't know any better. And it didn't work.

[A]

Didn't know any better. They made much more money on us than they brought us in. And we fired them after a year and found a management team.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then the managers were going after bigger brand deals, but again, you know, we weren't that established yet. And even though we were getting views, it feels to me like brands almost need to see a consistency for a while before they really jump in. Or they need to see a, a bigger conversation around you happening before they want to become part of your world.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

If that makes sense. It's almost like they want to see other brands jumping on before. Like they. Nobody wants to be the first. Yeah. So we were getting some brand deals, but they weren't that significant. And I didn't really believe in the things that much. You know, as gaming, we don't game. So I was kind of getting turned off by doing that. Definitely interrupted the. The flow of the videos.

[B]

Right. You're trying to force fits up for stuff that doesn't make sense.

[A]

And the money was, compared to what the AdSense was, wasn't so significant. That made up for losing the ability to tell a good story.

[B]

Okay, so then maybe I'm fast forwarding a little bit, but here. But talk about having. There's a lot of creators that have their own brands that you hear different things. Like that's. That was huge. A couple years ago it peaked. There's plenty of room. It's only works for certain categories.

[A]

Yeah, I don't believe in it. I don't believe any of that.

[B]

Okay, tell me about.

[A]

How do you start thinking about that classic YouTuber trajectory? You come up with some gimmick, you get popular, you get some money, you start spending the money to flex your wealth. That becomes your content. Then you start pitching a bunch of products that you don't believe in and that they don't work and there's no need for, and you get more money. And then eventually people get tired of your shtick and you disappear. And that all takes between three and five years.

[B]

And like, you've seen this like play out where.

[A]

Yeah, endlessly. I, I won't say any name.

[B]

Sort of wreck your audience relationship or your credibility or they. Or you just don't.

[A]

Yeah. Every. All these YouTubers are so freaking young. They're children. They're all children. And. And that's not. That's not a neg. I'm not being. I'm just saying they're young. I. When I was 21, could I have handled millions of dollars?

[B]

There are people and said yes to lots of things.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Like Ben Azelart, for example, a great example of the opposite. Amazing guy, unbelievably mature for any age, much less 22 or whatever he is. Handles it all very well, makes a really good living, but doesn't do more than he wants to do. He's a great example. He hasn't changed his style, even though he's gotten very successful. There's a lot of people I can say that have done it right. But there's also a lot of people, especially earlier, who hadn't Learned this yet who just thought the wealth was the thing that made the audience interested in them, which is actually the opposite. Makes you unrelatable. And then they start flexing and then they need more money to pay for all that. And so then they try to release products, and then they release 20 products because they want one of them to hit and all that. So I think that the problem with influencer products or, you know, brands is that people, they don't think about what their audience would need, how they can serve their audience, what makes sense to their brand. Instead, they say a company comes, says, hey, do this. Like, great, I'll make some money.

[B]

And then they sell the most. Right?

[A]

Yeah. And then they do it. Here's another great example. Ryan Trahan, also a young guy. They all are. Joyride. Brilliant the way he did that, because it was one thing, you know, Ryan doesn't sell stuff. He, he raises money for charities. Incredible. And then he finds one thing and he obsesses over that and he makes that his thing. If you do it that way and you believe in the thing and there's a white space for it, you're much more likely to be successful.

[B]

Instead of every other month, I've got a new thing that I'm right.

[A]

But also, you know, he, he personalized that to himself. Hey, I love candy, but I don't like eating sugar. But I love it. And you see it in his videos. He likes to eat like McDonald's every day and all that. So, you know, so it made sense. And so what we did was we said, okay, we're not going to do a lot of brand deals. I was, I've been for five years since I've been working say I was like, I don't want to do a lot of brand deals because I don't want to become a creator that's always pitching something audience. So put it this way, way we like to make our content is it's almost like we're inviting you over to our house. You're hanging out with us. Salish. A lot of people that watch us see her as, you know, their friend, big sister. If you're hanging out with your friend, you're having a sleepover, you're going to go, oh, by the way, you got to try this new game here. You know what? I'm going to give you a link and then you try it, and then I'll make some money. So let's. Yeah, like, it feels so inauthentic. So we've, we, we've done some of Course, but we've avoided it for the most part. And as we avoided it and as our views continue to rise, the offers became more frequent and they became higher offers.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And the reason is, is because it looked like maybe a year ago everybody suddenly like opened their eyes like, oh wait, you guys are on YouTube. Does that make sense? Like for years everybody in our category was getting these six figure brand deal offers and we weren't, but we were getting more views.

[B]

That's, that doesn't make sense. Why? Why?

[A]

The reason was because we came later to the game so we didn't get unusual.

[B]

Like you're not like you're, you're like you said dad and daughter. Not necessarily like the typical YouTuber if.

[A]

There is one could be that also people would say, oh, it's because that it titled the channel is Jordan Matter. Not Matter family or not Salish Matter. So then they think they're buying you but they really want her or whatever. There was all these reasons, but in the end of the day it was really that we didn't have enough reps. We were like, you know, like if you think about sports, the star always gets paid the most when they're past their prime.

[B]

Yeah. Because you've already had your career year.

[A]

Right. So anyway, so long story short, we've kind of held back and we've been saying we don't want to pitch, pitch, pitch to our audience. Instead we want to just give them really great content every week and wait for an opportunity. If we ever believe in something, we'll put our everything into it. But if we never believe in something, we don't have to release a product. There's lots of ways to make money as a creator. You can put your content in a thousand places so you can repurpose content everywhere and that can generate more money than a product would anyway. So there's no urgency if it's about the money. It's only if there's a product you're actually excited to develop.

[B]

Okay, so then how does that building up tension to the about this, when does that happen for you? If you're a makeup creator, there's so many, it's so many obvious ways to launch your brand. There's me. I wouldn't have necessarily said there's an obvious way for you to launch your own brand, but how does this come into fruition and where does it come from?

[A]

Well, first of all, it was the complete and total takeover of my daughter on the channel. Right. So number one, like you're looking at me, but it's not me. I'm in half the video all the time. Yeah, but it's her. She's the one. She's the one. She's the one everybody relates to. She's on every thumbnail. It's her journey. She's the one that they've grown up with.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I play a secondary role of a dad that can be fun and cringe and relatable. And I put a lot of effort into the pre production and creative all week. And we really protect her time. I'm very protective of her time. Meaning we shoot one day a week, that's it. The other six days. She goes to school, she does her sports, she hangs out with friends. We don't talk about YouTube.

[B]

That matters.

[A]

Normal life, normalcy throughout this whole time. And yet when you think about products, you got to think about it coming from her, what would be relevant to her and kids her age.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So that's when we finally decided to go all in on one product, which is Skincare at Sephora. Now I'm happy to talk about how that came about and what the result has been, if you'd like.

[B]

Some creators will just have something they're passionate about, some people will just grab whatever and then they'll get to a retailer eventually. Tell me how this starts for you and why skincare depends.

[A]

Like, I think it depends. I think it has to be the right partner. With skincare, we wanted to do skincare and the reason why there's this thing called Sephora Kids, it's been in the news for the last couple of years. All these kids that should not be doing certain kinds of skin care are doing it. They're getting their faces.

[B]

Yeah, your face is fine.

[A]

Exactly. And the reason is, is because all the products for skin care that were made for young skin are not cool. And they're watching TikTok about Drunk Elephant and these other brands, they want it, they want to feel cool, so they get that. But it's got retinol that rips their skin apart and then they end up with really irritated skin. It was becoming a huge thing. So we said, what if we made skincare that is good for young skin so they can use it, it develops healthy habits like Ethan.

[B]

I don't have to worry about this. They're not going to ruin your face.

[A]

And it's cool. It's cool because the packaging is cool, because Salish can be cool to people. It's just a cool product and it's affordable and it's got a major retailer behind it and there's only one. There's only one and that's Sephora. No, nobody else has that cachet.

[B]

So it could have been not to name any names, but if the wrong retailer wouldn't, it's not like you just had to grab the biggest retailer they could. Somebody could have screwed this up, I guess, is what I'm.

[A]

Well, you could do it D to C. You could do it with Target, you could do it with, with Ulta. And there's no wrong. No, there's no wrong. I mean, Road with hailey Bieber was D2C and just sold for a billion dollars to Sephora. So you can do it that way. But we wanted to do Sephora. That doesn't mean that they wanted us, by the way, because when you go into a pitch meeting, first thing they're asking you is, okay, well, show us your conversion. What have you sold before?

[B]

You're like, nothing.

[A]

Like, we haven't sold nothing. I could say we could show them conversion from brand deals that converted exceptionally well. We could show them offers from brand having converted that.

[B]

We've never done this before. The.

[A]

But not on that level. Not like we've launched a product. So we could say, here's why we think it's successful. And I'll tell you one interesting thing that really tipped the scales. She said when we had our pitch meeting with Sephora, big deal. It was, it was. Salish wasn't there, it was me. It was the, the CEO who we'd found by then. It was the, the financing people. And we sat there and we're giving this presentation and then the woman's the, the head of the booking at Sephora said, well, why would you be successful when Ariana Grande wasn't? I mean, celebrity brands often don't work. I said, okay, are you a fan of Ariana Grande? And she said, yeah. I said, what's the color of her bedroom? And she's like, I don't know. So what's the name of her dog? What's her best friend? What does she do on Saturday morning? Our audience will know all those questions in a half second.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And that's the difference between celebrity and.

[B]

They don't have that distance.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, it's celebrity and influencer. Totally different relationships and different relationships between short form and long form creators. The most intimate connection you can get is streamer. Look at speeds tour around the country. Look at Kai. The second most intimate relationship you can get with an audience is long form YouTube.

[B]

I think where you're going with this, that lends Itself to product and product recommendation way more than just, yeah, you know, not so approachable celebrity. I'm not knocking Ariana Grande or whatever, but just. That feels like you're going to trust somebody in a different level with that.

[A]

Well, you have an emotional connection to them that you may not have. I mean, a lot of singers get that connection, but, you know, it's a different kind of thing. You don't. They're not invited in their home every week. This was just a theory on my part. This wasn't actually borne out by any data. I just, I. It was all theory because we've never done it. We had no idea if anybody would buy it. There's different kinds of channels, right? You have channels who do extremely well with views, but they don't have a personal connection with their audience. You have personal connection with the audience, but they don't get a lot of views. To combine the two is so hard because what YouTube prioritizes is almost disincentivizes the creator to have a relationship with the audience because you got to go so fast for the retention.

[B]

Interesting. What makes the audience love you is taking the time and connecting and the algorithm and the recommendation wants you to.

[A]

I mean, I think what the audience wants is authenticity and they want you to care.

[B]

Right?

[A]

We care. I legitimately really care about the message we're sending to the audience about how they receive that message, about how Salish feels about the content, about the relationships in the videos and whether or not those are authentic. Like, there's so much stuff about that that I care about. And I think if you start from a place of I truly value and respect and care about you, I'm grateful for you and I want to give something back to you that you could use versus I can make a quick buck because I get a lot of.

[B]

Got you. I'm going to use you.

[A]

Yeah, right. So. So I think they can, you know, you can see that in the content. Because content style too, can be about taking audience for granted, which we. We just don't do. So we prioritize retention, for sure, and storytelling, but we also prioritize relationships. And I would say, if anything, our channel is about relationships.

[B]

You have this theory. You're talking to Sephora. They're asking you, you know, how do you know this is going to work? Take me to, like, where things are today. You don't know how to a lot about manufacturing products.

[A]

No, of course not. I mean, we bring on a CEO who had been. Who had run a skincare company and we got we got it. We got an A team. Like we weren't going to do it half assed. We weren't going to just like pop something on a DTC and then say we Aren't we cool? Don't you want this? Instead we're like, how do we own this? If you're gonna do it, do it. Same way I approach the content.

[B]

You want a great product.

[A]

Yeah. Like for years I've never thought of our content, for example, as being competitive in any way with other YouTubers. I actually, I'm friends with everybody. We collab all the time. I'm competing against Netflix. I think I wanna, I wanna make a Netflix show. I'm not literally like, I want our show to beat Netflix, which we did in 2024. We, we're in top 10 on Nielsen ratings and with all the streaming platforms. That's always been my goal, to create content that is visually stimulating enough and high production value enough to be able to scene on a television.

[B]

So that was gonna be. Hold that thought. Cause I wanna ask you about the TV thing, but so, okay, yeah, go back.

[A]

Okay, so. So in other words, what I do is like when you approach something, don't do it like birdshot. Don't try throw out a thousand different things. Like focus on a couple things you got. Content, that's your foundation. Make the best content you can every week. No matter what else is happening, make that happen. Best content you can every single week. Number two, if you're gonna do a product, make sure it's the best version of that product you could make and go all in on it. Swing for the fences, get the best team, get the best retailer, get everything. So we did all that and we've been building it for a year and a half with no idea if anybody would buy it. Absolutely, genuinely, honestly, no clue what would happen. Lots of pressure though, because Sephora brought us in as their answer to teen skincare. Nobody else just up.

[B]

You weren't, you weren't one of 20 in this program.

[A]

They were just up.

[B]

The stakes are pretty high.

[A]

Yeah. We finally are ready to announce it and you know, we were leaving little Easter eggs throughout our videos that there's, you know, that people have since found. Now to give you a sense of context about where we were at when this happened, our channel averages about 300 million views a month. They're all long form, they're not dubbed. We do one, one language, which is Spanish, a week late, that counts for about 10% of our tail views. But in the first week we. It's all you English speaking. And we are, you know, our viewership at this point is number two in the US to Mr. Beast and we have the top female audience in the us so you would think, okay, that means the people are going to be excited, but you just don't know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Also, Salish has been the top on famous birthdays for two years, which might be a ho hum, but famous Birthdays has 25 million unique users a month. And it's all Gen Alpha and Gen Z. All Gen Alpha and Gen Z.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And she is more searched than Taylor Swift or anybody else for the last two years. So those metrics say, wow, there's something potential here, but still no clue what's going to happen. And we announced that we're going to have a launch event for this skincare line at American Dream Mall. American Dream mall is where Mr. Beast had his Beastburger Mall Famous. He's there and there's 45,000 people.

[B]

Right, right. My kids wanted to go like the next day and I'm like, no, it's in Jersey. It's too far.

[A]

Right, exactly. So it was a massive thing, massive exciting thing and put creators in general on the map. Like, wait, the power of creators.

[B]

And it was very eye opening for sure.

[A]

It was extremely. 45,000 people was a lot of people. So now we're going there and we're thinking, can we get a thousand? That would be sick. We planned for five, meaning if we can get 5,000 people. And this was a stretch, we didn't think we'd get it. But we have enough product for 5,000 people for the pop up. So we can give away 5,000 and we could. And it'll be, you know, you don't.

[B]

Want to go too far and go and fall in your face. Like you want to be set up to look good.

[A]

You want to be. But also you're like, there's no way we're going to use all 5,000. So we were already making plans. What are we going to do with the excess? Where are we going to put it? And you know, but 5,000 would look good on camera. It'd be pretty impressive. It's not Mr. Beast, but it'd be cool. We get there on Friday night, people are already in line 7pm and it's not happening until 10am the next morning. So now we're starting to think, okay, wow, maybe we'll hit 5,000. Like, this is crazy. There's a couple hundred people there at 9pm and then it keeps getting longer and longer and longer. Go home, go to bed. 6am I get my first text from the CEO like we have a problem. There were 20,000 people already in the atrium. That can fit 10,000.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

And the, the highway was backed up. We have all this on camera. We made a video about it. Full on stop traffic jam on the highway.

[B]

5:00Am so you're, you're causing fire violations.

[A]

Exactly. All the parking lot was full by 6am they had to reroute people to the Meadowlands to park. And the state police were called in because there wasn't enough mall security to handle it. And the state police were threatening to shut it down before it even started because how many people were there? Turns out 87,000 people came. 87.

[B]

The beat was coming to JFK or something. Like people are just losing their minds.

[A]

It was twice what Mr. Beast got and it was unbelievable moment, right? There was a line of thousands of people just to get into the Sephora which only had 600 units sold out in an hour. And then they had to close their doors because people were banging on the glass to get into Sephora. There was you know, a pop up line. There was, we had a huge like stage show that was packed to the rafters. It was, it was not very safe. Police were shutting it down. We ended up having to get escorted out because they didn't want us if we showed up. They threatened if we go out there after the stage show. They threatened to arrest me for trespassing because it, somebody was going to get stampeded. Right. So it was, it was wild. If you go from. We'd never done an event, we've never done a meet and greet, right. To suddenly 87,000 people. It was.

[B]

And you got 5,000 products and we got 5,000 products.

[A]

Right? So we're just, I mean we've been dealing with the, with the fallout from this for a while. We, we, we, we've been emailing people. It's like it was a lot. It went from euphoria to really extreme frustration in, in the course of an.

[B]

Hour because you don't want to piss off this fan community works not piss off.

[A]

They were crying. So many people were there. Teen girls, 15 year olds sobbing because they couldn't get the product. They didn't get to see Salish. They didn't get anything they had hoped for. But they had been up since 10pm or 5am waiting in line. No, there was no organization like there's no like rope line or anything to tell people what to do. It just, they dropped the ball.

[B]

All you did I don't want to diminish this, but, like, it wasn't like you ran a bunch of super bowl spots. Like, all you did was promote this in the channel. Correct. Like, was there. Yeah. Any other, Any other advertising involved to try and bring?

[A]

No, there was no paid media. We. We would mention it in our videos. Right.

[B]

So that's. I mean, that's.

[A]

It's. It's insane. All. All of it is insane. And, you know, people flew in from all over the world. People drove for 18 hours. The. The amount of, like, gratitude I have, like, I. I can't even think about it without wanting to cry. I just. We've been working together for five years. Every week we put our head down, we say, let's just make a great video this week. Never had any idea how. How much it was resonating. No clue. Like, literally no clue.

[B]

You know, you have a fandom, you have the comments, but you were like, really affecting people's lives. And.

[A]

Yes, because we get, you know, you go out to a mall or whatever, and people come up and they take a photo, which is amazing. But you don't know. Is that because they recognize you or is it because they love your content? Like, you just don't know.

[B]

Everyone else is in line. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, Mr. Beast, when he had Beast Burger, he had already done so many huge things and he had sold out of his merch so many times and he had shown conversion on so many ways that it not a big surprise what. What happened with us. And there was a lot of virality to those TikToks that people posted and a lot of, like, mainstream news media.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're like, huh, who is she? Nobody knows who she is. It's like she brought 87,000. There was these. It was the largest creator event in history outside of Sidemen because they have Wembley Stadium.

[B]

Right.

[A]

There's never been a bigger one because there's no venue that any YouTuber would book for 87,000 people.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's just never happened. So. And nobody knows who she is. Like, Right.

[B]

If you were paying attention to YouTube, you could see it coming with Mr. Beast a little bit. But this was like, Mr.

[A]

Beast was already mainstream before Beast Burger.

[B]

He's on the COVID of Bloomberg. Yeah.

[A]

He was huge, Right? Not to mention he. He is Matt. I mean, he's still massive. Like, if he went today, I'm sure he would get a hundred thousand people. He wasn't as big then as he is now.

[B]

Okay. So you've gotta, like, you've got. You've had this incredible event which is on every level successful, but also you're disappointing fans. You're trying to catch up on manufacturing. What do you do next? Where do you end up now? And I know that I have like a million other questions.

[A]

We missed a moment in that we didn't have enough product. So Sephora and all of us were taken by surprise. So there just wasn't enough. Right. So it's all sold out immediately. Online. Sold out every time. And then the stores were a bit slow to get it on their shelves. Lots of demand. When it gets on the shelves, it sells out. Incredible problem to have, but leaving a lot on the table there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And still we are. Now it's, it's restocked on, on the website. It's not sold out anymore. Now you have to kind of restart that enthusiasm. And how do you do that? Because that, it wasn't just that we launched a product.

[B]

You don't know. Did I miss a moment here? Like, you know, is somebody else going to come along?

[A]

You know, I don't think anybody else is going to come along. I think it's more. I mean there will be a lot of people to come. I don't. I think that the thing is we made a really great product and what I, what I would say to people when we were building this, I'd say we can launch it. I, I didn't realize how big it would be. But we can launch it, but we can't get people to buy it a second time.

[B]

The sustainability. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So we have to make a great product. And by great, I mean something they actually need that looks cool but is good for their skin. That isn't going to break the bank. We need to have those three things are essential. And sailors always insisted on those three things. We got it right. They nailed it. The team, not me, Julia Strauss, the CEO and everybody, they nailed it. Incredible product, affordable, available at Sephora and good for their skin, but really cool looking. So I feel very positive in that it has longevity potential because it's beyond Salish at this point. It's just a great product but at this point, the only people getting it are the ones that are following Salish. So we have to transition away from her as the face of it into a great skincare brand, regardless of her. Speaking of her, I'm talking about you right now. Do you want to come out and say hi? She's got. It's this day off of school. Is it weird to hear your name talks about so much? Sorry, I'm not listening. You can listen. Yeah, she's dealing with the dogs.

[B]

I'm wondering. I'm afraid my podcast might blow up if this.

[A]

Look. Oh, my God. And there's your thumbnail.

[B]

Oh, no. Now I'm not gonna be able to handle the fandom for this.

[A]

Say, I was just talking about sincerely yours and the launch event. Yeah.

[B]

Congratulations.

[A]

So am I. Yeah, yeah, we've had a good run of it. And that's Hudson, my son. What up, gang?

[B]

Hey, Hudson. How's it going?

[A]

We're in the middle of just talking YouTube on podcast.

[B]

Can I introduce the dog now?

[A]

That's. That's Moo. You're actively on a podcast? Yes. You're actively on a podcast.

[B]

We're not on, like, Twitch or anything.

[A]

This is what I'm wearing. I wasn't expecting it to be on camera.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. I don't want to keep you in.

[A]

Front of your face. I can't see it. Bye. Wait. Oh, you're staying out here? Okay. All right, back. Sorry for the diversion.

[B]

No, no, it's fine. It's great. So when you catch up, you know, you'll. Eventually, you will catch up. You'll able to hopefully expand this beyond your daughter's being. You know, the only face of saying you're the only one that's driving demand. Does this have. Make you have an appetite to, like, let's do five other products. Let's get 10 other advertisers. Hold on. I can't. I don't want to. I never want to do this again. Like, we're.

[A]

No. There's. There's three things that she and I want to do, and then. And we're done. And this. This is one of them. There's two other things, because I think, again, I get it. I, I totally understand for the first time the temptation that's out there, because, like, you know, for this year has been a lot of opportunities, but after the event, it's been. It was. It's just like. I mean, the visual of that, obviously, every brand, every. Everybody's like, I want. I want that.

[B]

I was going to ask you, do you need these programs to help you connect with brands? You don't need that at this point. Like, everyone's calling you.

[A]

We don't need that at this point. But we could have used it for the last five years, but we don't need it now because I, I, My, My feeling about it is, and Salish agrees, is that there's one moment, and that moment is, she's a kid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a special moment in our lives. I do not want to inundate her with a bunch of work.

[B]

This is my. Not when she's 35 years old. This might not make any sense. Or. And it. Or.

[A]

What I mean is, like, I want her to look back on this time and go, I'm really glad we did that together. But I also got to experience my childhood.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

That's as important to me as the contract.

[B]

That's tricky to pull off. Yeah.

[A]

We have been doing well for years on YouTube and I was doing well before her. So financially we're fortunate and so we don't have to jump at opportunities. But it's still tempting when opportunities are there. But you have to think long term. So in our case, right now, I think we're in a unique situation where we can kind of call the shots of what we want. I would like to do one more equity thing. So if it sells, it's a great opportunity for it because it all goes to her anyway.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, I'm. I'm great. I'm set. This is all building her nest egg. So I want to have her. Have her. Have a couple of companies and. And learn about business and learn about building a company, and then one of them is successful. Great. She'll make a bunch of money. If they're not successful, then she learned how to do it and she. When she grows up, she can do that for herself. And we didn't. We didn't get paid anything to Sephora, nothing, you know, so it's all. But we're not making any money. So it's all about, like, if it sells one day, we will. But at this point, it's all an investment of our time and we've put money in. And then there's. I also feel very strongly about doing animation. I want to have an animated show.

[B]

I was gonna ask you about the. You're competing with Netflix. All Of a sudden, YouTube is being consumed at TV in a much bigger way. It's probably a huge audience for dance somewhere in that streaming universe. But you wanna do. Sorry, go ahead. You wanna do animation? Do you wanna do more content?

[A]

I would love to find ways to create content that don't involve more of her time. Right. And animation is that thing. We take an animated show about us and we age it when she was 10 or 11, so that we're locking in that moment where she. Like, it was just such a fun moment of her in her life. And I think it's very. It resonates with A lot of people. And then we take that and we go to a Disney and Netflix somewhere and we have them produce the show. So that is my second big goal, because it will take no more of her time. But it's another opportunity to direct our audience in a way for something that I think. Because I would only want to do it if it was entertaining and had good life lessons. And that's what our channel is, too. We try to model healthy relationships and good life lessons. So we would incorporate that into the content. I mean, into the animation. So that's two. And then there's one more thing that we might do that has to do with apparel or it has to do with toys, and we're considering that. And then after that, I think we step back and we continue to make really good content. Because the other direction is, you say there's 10 offers on the table. All of them are lucrative. All of them are beyond what we would have ever expected to get. Let's do it all. And then meanwhile, you forget about the foundation. The reason why people like you is because every week they get to see you.

[B]

Right? You're just maxing the hell out of it because you want.

[A]

Yeah. Hey, every. Every video, there's a new product. And, hey, go to Target for this. Go to Walmart for this. I mean, we're. We've gotten, like, just in the last couple weeks, some very significant offers for very large quantities of orders for things that we haven't even developed yet. They're like, we don't even care. I'm like, that's not the right attitude.

[B]

Right. Because it's not gonna be great.

[A]

It's just gonna be her face on a thing. And you think people buy it, but they're not gonna buy it if we don't believe in it. If she doesn't believe in it. If it's not a good product, it'll.

[B]

Catch up with you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Jordan, we could talk about this forever. This is fascinating. So much fun. But I wanna let you go here. But thank you so much for all your time. Fascinating. Let's chat again as progresses. But best of luck with the. With all these nice problems you have.

[A]

None of them are problems. Just. Just choices. But thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate it.

[B]

Awesome. Thank you.

[A]

All right, take care.