North America's "Big and Small Brother Yang" made 500 million yuan, revealing the business empire of the post-95 Internet celebrity brothers

Silicon Rabbit Race

2024-04-29 17:29Posted on the official account of Shanghai Silicon Rabbit Racing

"Internet celebrity brothers work together to make crazy money. ”

Author | King Wang

Edit | Vine Week

Even if you don't watch live broadcasts or watch short videos, I'm afraid you've heard of the name "Big and Little Brother Yang".

Whether it is the past of "the gears of fate began to turn", or the controversy of live broadcasting, or all kinds of lace news after the sudden wealth, as top Internet celebrities and successful businessmen, their words and deeds are almost all observed and commented on.

In the United States, there is also such a pair of post-95 brothers, who started from highly controversial Internet celebrities, crossed borders many times, and today have become all-round players across the Internet, sports, business, and investment. According to DailyMail, they have 55 million pounds (about 500 million yuan) in revenue.

01

Departure:

Brave people enjoy life first

Logan Paul and his younger brother, Jake Paul, were born in Ohio and, like many ordinary American teenagers, love sports, fun, and try new things. When their brother Jake was 10 years old, his father gave them a camera to play back the tapes, but the brothers decided to use it to capture the anecdotes of their daily lives.

He was just 10 years old and his brother Logan was 12 years old, and they posted these silly videos on Youtube. At that time, Youtube had not long been founded, and the brothers gradually accumulated a little fan base on this new platform.

The leap took place in 2013.

At the beginning of the year, the short video platform Vine was officially launched. On this platform, users can post short videos of no more than 6 seconds. In just three months, Vine surpassed 200 million users, becoming the most downloaded video-sharing app at the time.

The two people dancing the Mario Brothers dance on Vine|Source: YouTube

Paul's brothers also sensitively captured this trend, and they began posting videos on Vine. Suddenly, one day, a video became popular - in today's words, it became a hit - so the number of fans began to grow exponentially, 10,000, 100,000...... Soon, their followers exceeded 5 million.

Just as they were excited about the ever-beating fan count, something even more surprising happened: Vine reached out to the brothers to get them to promote the app and pay $200 for advertising.

"Can you still make money by posting videos?" Brother Paul seems to have been opened up to the second pulse of Ren Du. Since then, there have been more and more advertising lists, and the brothers have also seen the business opportunities in it, and continue to expand to Instagram, Snapchat and other platforms.

"Before we even came to our senses, we were already making a lot of money. The two brothers said so.

02

闯荡:

Acting, boxing, and releasing records

After becoming a well-known Internet celebrity blogger with vlogs and funny videos, Hollywood also threw an olive branch to the Paul brothers, and the two brothers began to appear in series produced by Disney and Fox.

But the two brothers' interests don't stop there. On the one hand, they continued to operate self-media accounts, and their followers continued to accumulate, and they were repeatedly named the most paid Youtuber of the year, and on the other hand, they began to cross borders and explore the multi-faceted nature of Internet celebrities. Wave after wave of controversy has been accompanied.

One of the most sensational is Logan's "Suicide Forest vlog incident". During a trip to Japan, Logan visited a well-known suicide forest and filmed a video of the deceased who committed suicide and posted it on his YouTube account. The video surpassed 6.3 million views in 24 hours and sparked a lot of criticism. Although Logan later deleted the video and issued an apology, the turmoil led to the banning of his Youtube account, the suspension of the TV series, and the endorsement of bad reviews.

Source: Metro

His younger brother Jake is much the same. Because of all kinds of big-mouthed speeches, sensational video content, and unclear endorsements, they are often on the hot search.

As a pair of child stars whose main fan base is teenagers, when the Paul brothers grow older and have more and more weighty adult topics such as money, politics, violence, and sexuality in their lives, they will inevitably make expressions that are not suitable for teenagers, which will pose a great threat to their commercial value as Internet celebrities.

The Paul brothers realised this early on and began their behind-the-scenes careers.

03

Ambition:

Step back from the front line of Internet celebrities and build a business empire

During the Vine era, Jake thought that maybe I could become a Dr.Dre in the social media field and train more talented teenage bloggers.

In 2016, he founded Team 10 to find a group of "disciples" who taught them how to run their own social media, and in two weeks, the followers of these small influencers surged from 30,000 to 400,000. The following year, on his 20th birthday, Jake announced the launch of TeamDom, a media company that had received $1 million in funding from several organizations, including Horizons Alpha.

In 2022, Jake founded Betr, a sportsbook. With Jake's endorsement in the sports and media worlds over the years, Betr has raised more than $100 million in funding and is valued at about $375 million. Currently, he is also working on a men's skincare start-up project.

Source: YouTube

In the same year, his brother Logan also started a new business.

Co-founded the beverage brand Prime with Youtuber KSI. In an Instagram live broadcast, Logan announced the birth of the new brand, which instantly sparked a fanatical response from fans. Although media people have repeatedly complained about its commercial purpose and product quality, it has not affected Logan's fans to snap up online and offline, and the Prime drink was once in short supply, and it was sold for £400 on eBay for 12 bottles, and teenagers are proud to own a bottle of Prime.

Today, without seeking any outside funding, Prime has surpassed $1.2 billion in annual sales and is one of the fastest-growing new brands in history, thanks to Logan's marketing efforts alone.

图源:Game Rant

As an "old-timer" who has experienced the entire Internet self-media era and fully enjoyed the dividends, the Paul brothers naturally have to give back to the society. In 2021, the duo established the Anti Fund, which is a rolling fund that subscribes and raises funds on a quarterly basis. Once founded, the Anti Fund was supported by Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon. So far, Anti Fund has made more than 20 shots, focusing on the seed round to the A round.

Anti Found

04

Spallation:

Internet celebrity turned businessman

Influencers like Brother Yang or Brother Paul are a huge group that is hard to ignore.

How do they monetize, commercialize, and even transform? Many people choose to bring goods, or launch their own brands and products, but for Internet celebrities who are not familiar with brand building, product research and development, and business management, it is not easy to cultivate a brand that is popular and popular.

As a result, a number of brand incubators have emerged in the market. They are either founded by influencers or work with influencers to help self-media people achieve commercial success based on their own resources and experience. Congo Brands, founded by Logan Paul, is one of them.

Bespoke Beauty Brands旗下的品牌|图源:Larchmont LA

其孵化的代表作除了Prime之外，还有健康食品品牌Alani Nu、饮料品牌3D Energy。 与此类似的还有美妆领域的品牌孵化器Bespoke Beauty Brands，旗下有彩妆品牌KimChi Chic和Jason Wu Beauty。

After several generations of self-media people have explored, after the "Internet celebrity" has turned around, there are more and more paths to choose from, and their influence and value have gradually spread beyond the screen, becoming a commercial force that cannot be underestimated.

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