{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Creator Generation","title":"How Caleb Hammer grew one of the biggest YouTube memberships in the world - Feat. Robert Kaliati, President of Hammer Media","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2940,"description":"Robert Kaliati has known Caleb Hammer since middle school. They played music together, ended up doing sales at the same company in Austin, and when Caleb left to start a YouTube channel, Robert eventually joined to run the business side. He is now President and COO of Hammer Media, which means he is the one thinking about what happens to 35 staff and 20 contractors if the guy whose name is on the door stops filming.\nIn this episode, Robert is unusually open about the operating side of a creator business. We cover how he handles controversy (mostly by having the difficult conversations with brands and staff months beforehand, then doing nothing on the day), the extensive casting process behind Financial Audit and the guests who used to make it into the chair without being real, and how the membership went from a flopped Patreon to roughly 110,000 members on YouTube, doubled in under a year, with 80% actually watching week over week. He is also clear on the money question most creators avoid: why DollarWise, their budgeting app, deliberately carries almost none of Caleb's branding, and why that restraint is the whole point. Plus his rule that everything ships with an A/B test, how he disagrees with a creator using data rather than opinion, and why the standard advice to hire an editor first is often wrong.\nA rare look behind a fast-growing creator company from the person whose job is to make it survive without the creator.\nTopics covered: key man risk · creator and operator partnerships · handling controversy · memberships and subscription revenue · casting and story production · testing and experimentation · when and who to hire first · building products that outlast the creator","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/NDM8ivV3uDl_Q3sTBGbbGlhJtxvkN9MsGtP6GI_B00A/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8xMzM5/YWVlMWE1MDVjMTVm/YjQ1NTRiMTVmYjdl/OThmOS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}