Creator Playbooks Meet The Man Behind The Sidemen's $100M Empire
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Jordan Schwarzenberger is the manager behind The Sidemen — one of the biggest creator groups on the planet, with over 10 billion views and a content empire that extends into restaurants, vodka brands, trading cards, a membership platform, and more. In this episode, Jordan breaks down the systems, strategies, and business models behind The Sidemen’s explosive rise.
We cover how The Sidemen built a 2-billion-views-per-year YouTube machine, the real economics behind content businesses, the future of creators, how to think commercially about your channel, why most creators are stuck, and why the next era of content isn’t production — it’s engineering. This is one of the most detailed creator masterclasses ever recorded.
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Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction: The next era is content engineering
1:37 – When Jordan realised creators were different
5:04 – Why YouTube is the engine room of the creator economy
8:41 – Anyone can win on YouTube: the democratization of reach
9:49 – How Jordan first identified the opportunity with The Sidemen
12:20 – Building the business: the original strategy & 15 focus areas
14:13 – Alcohol brand, restaurant, trading cards & Side+ — choosing what to build
17:20 – Launching Sides, XIX Vodka & Best Cereal — the real challenges
22:20 – Why Side+ (membership) is their most successful business
23:48 – The economics of creator brands & realistic conversion rates
28:40 – Joint ventures, partnerships & structuring creator businesses
33:46 – Long-term thinking: why creators won’t see returns for years
36:11 – Diversifying creator income & building financial resilience
41:05 – Why most UK creators are stuck — and the algorithm trap
43:21 – How to think commercially: audiences, niches & advertising lanes
47:15 – Why YouTube should be your primary platform
49:59 – Do creators need managers? (Jordan’s honest take)
53:47 – High-volume content, storytelling & what makes content “good”
55:58 – The three S’s: Stop, Stay, Satisfy — Jordan’s content framework
1:01:34 – The importance of analysing content like an engineer
1:03:29 – The monoculture collapse & how algorithms changed everything
1:08:07 – Instagram vs TikTok vs YouTube: where the real value is
1:13:37 – Why traditional TV talent struggle to transition to YouTube
1:17:55 – Final insights + why we’re still early in the creator wave