LeapTakersPodcast_#25 - Hugo Amsellem

Remo Kyburz: [00:00:00] Coming up on this episode of Leap Takers: 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:00:02] Whether you like it or not, whether it's good or bad, I don't know. But what happens? It says the tsunami, like the dam literally broke and the tsunami of individuals that are empowered by the most magnificent leverage ever built the internet, come to the market, it's going to be chaos. And so the creator economy is really about this.
Like those individuals leveraging the media to scale themselves. Even more interestingly now are starting to leverage codes to even scale themselves. Increasingly what I mean by that is that. Podcasters and youtubers and all of those things , they had YouTube discover themselves right already, like just to replicate those videos to the infinite.
But now they also have the tools like built by other startups to empower themselves with accounting, et cetera, et cetera. So then all the S the stack, the tool stack that they use. Are just going to make them even more superhumans. And so that's really that the creator economy is about individuals that are using media to scale themselves, using tools and services, to even scale themselves at like a more important rate. 
Intro 

Remo Kyburz: [00:01:19] Hi, everyone. I'm happy to bring you a new episode today of the Leap Takers  podcast. Where I'm as always interviewing up-and-coming European entrepreneurs, investors, and shapers from various fields to retrace the journey of how they start their own company and to discover the insights, tips, tricks, and advice they gathered. 
So that you two, maybe can take the leap. It has been awhile, but I'm super excited to be back. And I have a super interesting guest today. His name is Hugo Amsellem. Hugo  is originally from France. And it's one of the biggest proponents and thought leaders in the world of the creator economy. So the creator economy encompasses , pretty much everyone that builds and create something online. 
This could be podcasters, YouTubers, streamers, indie hackers, Shopify. Et cetera. We will talk a lot about this topic today. and this trend and why it's so relevant. in lots more detail in this episode. 
Furthermore, Hugo was part of the founding team of the family. The family is one of Europe's leading accelerators for startup founders In fact, it's more of a fellowship and a community rather than a traditional accelerator. 
But we will cover that in more detail as well. All in all, Hugo is a fascinating guy and he has many very insightful thoughts and ideas. Also make sure to keep listening all the way today until this episode, because his answer to my question about what courage means for him really blew me away. I thought it had a lot of wisdom in it and I really enjoyed it. 
So having said that, please enjoy this episode with Hugo Amsellem.  

Interview

hi, Hugo. Welcome to the Leaptakers podcast. Thank you so much for coming today on the show. And it's great to have you.

Hugo Amsellem: [00:02:55] Thanks for inviting me Remo super excited. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:02:57] Yeah, very cool that we can make it happen.  As always, I would like to start with getting to know you quickly, like, how would you introduce yourself to someone you just met and just kind of briefly talk about what you're currently doing or building?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:03:09] Yeah, well, essentially. Yeah, I'm I'm a super enthusiastic Tech guy that is fascinated by two things, startups and creators. I initially started in the music business. I wanted to save the artists because at the time, you know, we had no creators. We're just , like musicians and musical artists.
And so I started working in the music business when I was 20. I did that for six months. I hated it. I left, I built my own company to replace the major labels I failed. And I joined a company called the family. I then. Went on the other side of the fence and helps more than 700 founders over 
the course of seven years to basically like be empowered with an amazing community in Europe.
And then I left. And started to really think a lot about the creators and the creator economy, which essentially, and we're definitely going to dig about around that a bit more, but which essentially is what happened in, in the startup world but at the individual level. So like what happens when an individual scale?
And I recently joined a company called Jellysmack. Which is a technical publisher for video creators, which essentially makes the video creators big on different platforms. And I joined them to build a, an accelerator for creators. Obviously we know accelerator for startups. We see YC like the family and a lot of other startup accelerator, and I'm trying to pioneer the acceleration for creators.
And so I just joined a month ago and, and the goal is to. Create the best program for creators, specifically, YouTubers to grow more ambitious and we, the best resources around them and the best people. And we're going to obviously host that in LA, which is the Silicon valley of creators. And Yeah. I'm super excited.

Remo Kyburz: [00:04:51] Yeah. I mean also when I came across you awhile ago, like I think you're really one of the guys that is big in the creative space. And you also kind of coined or helped coin this term of creative economy, I think or you co accredit a lot of content in that space. So we will definitely talk about that later in this episode.
Before we get there. I was just curious to learn about your personal path to entrepreneurship or why you decided not to go into corporates or like a more traditional path after university. So how did that look like for you? Like, what was it that made you then also join the family later and kind of go this non-traditional route?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:05:31] I mean, it's, it's super simple. I think that I, I don't like the status quo and I, and I'm not saying this as like a, oh, I thought about these and like, I decided to build a company because I hated the status quo, but no, because I, I. That's what happened. And so, because I hated this, that cool. And at the time the status quo was the music business, because that's what I was fascinated with.
Right. Like I was fascinated with music and I just wanted to help the artists and work in music. Obviously I was not a good artist. So I was like, oh, you know what? I'm just going to help the artists with, you know, what I, what I could actually be good at. And so when in 2007, eight you're 22. And you want to go and work in the music business, the amount of toxicity, and of like, essentially like old people controlling an industry is super high.
And so I literally tried to go into the music business. Right. And I, and I worked for six months for, for a major label, you know, with like, sort of like the, the hat of the, of the, of the young geek. Knows internet. And that will try to change the music business from the inside with insight, et cetera.
And after six months of basically like, you know, Nothing 
fighting against a wall and, and, and being super frustrated about like the music business, not wanting to change a bit. I was like, fuck that, you know what, like, there's no way that I'm going to spend like that amount of energy trying to move like one centimeter of a, of a, of a wall, you know, like  by my only force.
So I was like, I'm just going to leave in. What I want, you know, And so what I wanted was like, okay the artists you know, now, and that was at the time, you know, like the artists were, were just starting to leverage social media, meaning that they had YouTube, but it will be that they had Spotify and basically like the promise of digital distribution, et cetera.
And what I, what it meant for me was like, okay, the artists don't need the permission. Any more from the music label to actually to that fan, get an audience and produce their album because one, the cost of production, even then, but he was yet the beginning, the cost of production even then. was promising.
Like, it was just super cheap too, to just record an album where like 10 years before that's, you know, you, you, you need it, like at least 15k,to a hundred k to record an album and to the cost of distribution was zero. So I was like, okay, you know what. I can not change the music business from the inside.
And I was pretty obvious after six months. So I'm just going to leave and build what I want to build, because what I want to build is essentially a platform and the cost of creation of a platform is also super low. So, you know, I'll, I'll just, I'll just do it. And that's literally what happened.

Remo Kyburz: [00:08:15] so that was then. Yeah, I guess the first company called Oocto. Can you briefly explain what, what actually Oocto was and then also your takeaways from the time that you spent? Because I think the first company is always probably the hardest and you make a lot of learnings, ,

Hugo Amsellem: [00:08:32] Absolutely. I mean, the main, the main thing that I learned, like, you know, first as, as a disclaimer, is that I'm not a good founder. so, that was, you know, one of the best earnings that you can get. Because you know, like one of the managers thing about entrepreneurship is that like, and that's something that we used to sell a lot at the family is that anyone can become an entrepreneur.
And that's absolutely true. Ken, and it doesn't mean that everyone will, but like a great entrepreneur can come from anywhere. And what that means. And for me, that's a really, really like central value in the central lesson. What that means is that everyone should try to become an entrepreneur because even if not, everyone will become a great founder and we'll be successful, obviously, you know, not because that's like the rate of failure is super high because.
An entrepreneur will teach you a lot of things about yourself. And even if you fail, even if it's not for you, you will become a better. Investor, a better employee, a better human to be frank, a better everything. Right. So for me, the big, the central lesson was like, okay, you know what, I'm maybe not a good start founder.
Maybe I'll could be like a good whatever founder, you know, like something else than a startup. But essentially what happened is that I saw the artists, you know, like, and it's distinct that it was talking about like the artists. This is sort of like a lot of money to actually start creating an album, creating like a video, a like clip or something like that.
And they have the internet to actually connect directly with their fans. So I was like, okay, I'm going to just build a Kickstarter for musicians or crowdfunding platforms. So a musician could raise money from their fans, and then I'm going to touch on today. Crowd funding platform. I'm going to touch on marketplace for skills.
So then artists could also use that money to work with vetted professionals that are really good, 
so they can realize their project. And so the goal was to help the music artists to obstruct the early stages of a major label. If you do the analogy with the, with like a startup and a musician, it's just like if a startup founder, if they wanted the, like a little bit of money.
The initial capital to start building their MVP. You know, it would be like getting a 50 K of investment or a hundred K of investment and giving you what, 80% of the business of the equity. 
Right. So that's, that's the deal I feel for artists like the, the, at the time that like, oh, you know what, like, I'm just going to sign with a major label, like for, for the next four albums, which is forever.
And I'm going to just give away 80% of the, of the revenues, you know, for like the production of this 

Remo Kyburz: [00:11:04] Wow. It's that high? That's crazy.

Hugo Amsellem: [00:11:06] Oh, it's, it's incredible. 
Right. And you'll understand why, because obviously, like a lot of artists are just, you know, not successful. So like the music label, which have an super, super high cost, I mean like a super heavy cost structure because they're not tech enabled.
Right. But it used to matter because like nothing was tech enabled at the time that they needed to do everything manually, but now it was 2000, like 8, 9, 10. it started to become like, absolutely not true. So I was like, Okay.
you know what? Let's just build leverage for those early stage musicians. So they can leverage the direct relationship that they have with their initial fans to raise that money, spend that money with us on the platform. And then basically. Build some leverage as to come back to the major label. Once they created an album, once they created something and be like, you know what, now It's not, it's not going to be 80, 20.
It's going to be 50 50. You know, I have some leverage. And so the lessons obviously was, you know, like I said, that I was not a good enough founder first, but then the lessons obviously like you have like a shit ton of lessons. Like we, we, we did so many mistakes, et cetera, et cetera, but also the lessons it's like crowdfunding is a really shitty business because you have a super, super high? acquisition costs.
Right? You just worked so hard to get an artist on your platform, and then you have no retention there. Just like th th the long-term value, like is super, super low because they raise money on your platform and then they are gone and there is no defensibility because once they are just gone, they're gone, they think their emails, like, and That's that's it, you know, they go, if they want, if you want to do it again, they do it in an ad platform.
There is absolutely No. moat. So that was really like the main lesson that I had You know, like CAC LTV ratio  for like the, you know, the most like business or startup, one-on-one sort of like equation. That was, that was the, the, their learning is just 
like, make sure that whatever you do, the cost of acquisition is lower than the long time, the longterm value of your customer, because otherwise you're just gonna fight against the wind and that's super, super, super 

Remo Kyburz: [00:13:00] Yeah. Yeah. Just to interject, I think, yeah, like , the whole, . CAC like customer acquisition cost to LTV ratio. I think it's something often overlooked for people. Are interested in entrepreneurship, but they might not be that familiar yet with the ins and outs and like what you should focus on.
And also for me in the past, it's not something I really cared that much about until I switched sides and  became an investor. And this is something you definitely, always look at. And it's like a core thing you look at in, in a, in a company 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:13:28] and it's over values and under it's at the same time, undervalued, overvalued, it's undervalued because absolutely founders need to understand that like the basics of a business is like, okay, like you need to make more money from your customer. They need to cost to acquire that customer. That's super easy.
Right. But, and, and like for sure, like founders need to understand that, et cetera. But it's also overvalued because I've seen a lot of companies. Initially not understanding that building. with amazing intensity for a super specific user with no CAC ratio at the beginning, and then like understanding and integrating from that.
Right? So like it's not something that absolutely needs to be there at the beginning, but there's the, there needs to be like a progression and a learning curve as to understand at some point like the, like the strategy positioning around around that that ratio. And, and then, you know, like then one, once you have that learning curve, then founders are just like, you know, over-performing once they understand that anyway, so like, 
yeah, you should have that in mind, but you should not be necessarily obsessed with that when you're starting your company. Cause you'll, you'll figure it out along the way. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:14:30] . Yeah. I fully agree. I mean, there's so many things you will figure out along the way and I think also what you mentioned before, To become a founder is something that everyone or almost everyone should try to do it. I fully agree with your points that you made. And also it teaches you so much in, in skills as well.
And you can learn so much because you have to do it yourself. You can not rely on like that in a big corporate, someone else is going to do it, or there is a specific team for that. So I think you will learn a lot then it definitely also agree with you there. 
So coming back to what you said that you think you're not a good founder and that there were a lot of learnings that you made.
Do you think that there is something that now someone who wants to start a business or a startup could already mitigate that risk of certain learnings that you made, that there is more like a crowdfunding is not a good business. Do you think there are any ways you can already think about that ahead of time or is it not worth it? And you just. Kind of go for it and do, we will make the learnings along the way?
Hugo Amsellem: [00:15:30] Yeah, I don't know you, it's impossible to like, and, and again, like, you know, we tend to. Especially when you're a VC. And then I have this professor from like a deformation as well, even if I'm not a VC per se, but like when you're on the other side of the fence, not a founder you're thinking about like risk assessments.
Like you're thinking about like underwriting, you're thinking about that. And you're like, okay, like, I want to do that for, for founders. Like maybe founders should do that themselves. So then it's easier for me. But the truth is that it's impossible. To think about creating a company as like a rational thing.
And so, because it's impossible to think about it like that. It's, it's impossible to like mitigate the risks. The only risks that are like that are possible to mitigate is the risk of doing something that you should not be doing right now. And for that, you know, like the question as a, as an early stage founder that you should ask is essentially.
do have a choice to do that or not like, what I mean by that is that like all the best funding stories. Retrospectively or about founders that had no choice. Right? So like either there's two options. Like either they didn't have a choice because I don't know, like, you know, like their, their parents died like during, I don't know, like a car crash and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to spend the rest of my life, just trying to solve like, you know, car accidents, death, whatever, and they're going to invent whatever.
And they don't have a choice because it's, it's part of themselves. It's, it's not like this internal drive. That is really obvious. Cause that's that's for like a minority of people, but it's like this, this, this thing. Did their own, like, they're almost like hyper obsessed people that don't have a choice, but to do things right.
And so like, this is the type of, of founders that in general, I really liked to interact with. It doesn't mean that every founder or every successful founder will have this trade, but it's, it's people like they are, they're not like what they're doing, building a company. It doesn't feel like work.
It just feels like something they have. Anyway. Right. And so in general, like when you're, when you're an early stage founder, that's the question is like, are you thinking about this intellectually too much? Well, you know, maybe you you're, you're not just like, you know, obsessed with something and then like, maybe you have the choice of doing something else.
And in this case, you know, you can still be able to company that's super fine. But building a company for me, it's like entering a relationship. You need to give a hundred percent, you need to put all of your forces inside that. If you have a doubt, if you and everybody has a doubt. Right.
But like, if there's like this sudden voice that is here that says, like, I I'm, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. She's like, you know, you don't necessarily have to start something, you know, you can do, you can work for someone, et cetera. It's fine. Because it's just like, when you take drugs, right?
Like when you're a, if you want to take LSD, which you want to take, like mushrooms, all of those drugs that you're like, wow. You know, if, if you're not a hundred percent sure about doing it, you might have a backup. 
Right. And building a company is the same thing, you know? You you, it doesn't mean that you have to be an expert.
It doesn't mean that you have to be like feeding, like, but if you feel like, hell yeah, like I have, I just want to do it. I don't have a choice. I just want to do it. I feel it right then like, just do it if you don't have that. And you're just overthinking it and have like, you know, That's fine. You know, you can, you can do some, all the things, you know, before like that feeling of like being sure comes and you can start side projects and, and, you know, like whatever, it's just like, if you're, if you're afraid of like, thinking like a full LSD, you know, those and pieces don't take LSD in general.
Let's just like, you know, like a bad energy. Maybe I just don't do it. Just do like a little thing and maybe feel good. And maybe you like later on and be like, you know what? That's not a big deal. I'll do the full dose. Right. That's the same with entrepreneurship. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:19:10] I like that.  And also maybe to add one thing  basically the idea is often also overvalued in the beginning, as a founder, like ideas are great. It's not everything. And you should rather focus.
Like you can make even an average idea work if you execute really well. And as he said, if you are really in it, because you don't have a choice, I think you can even make something that is not probably the best idea work. Just because you work harder or you work better or you're better have a better team.
So that's also something I think, to keep in mind.

Hugo Amsellem: [00:19:41] I was just like, as, as, as, as a quick ideas are almost worthless you know, it's just like, oh, I'm gonna. I'm going to find gold. I'm going to follow the gold rush. Like there is no idea. It's just like, it's not as, oh, you have the idea that gold is where something, of course everybody has that idea. Right?
So like, this is the same with companies. Most of the ideas that you have, even if it's not like globally, I realized, for a lot of people, your idea will be as obvious. I want to find gold, you know, it's so obvious. So you're like the, if you want to find gold, like the, the, the worst, like the value is nodding.
Oh, I have the idea that gold is worth something, but it's like where to find, how to find, be obsessed about like a specific place, a specific technique, et cetera, et cetera, and just basically get your hands dirty. And at some point. Maybe you'll find gold and then you'll be rich. Right. Then that's the same.
Right? So like a hundred percent ideas are worthless almost, you know, like there's an argument that could be made against that, but in general, that's, that's, that's quite true. Execution is, yeah. 
Remo Kyburz: [00:20:39] Yeah. Fully agree. Let's switch to another topic. So. Let's go to the family. And I'm just personally, also interested in the family because I heard about it a while ago. And before I spoil everything, could you just explain the audience what the family is and kind of how you got involved and let's take it from there?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:20:58] Absolutely. So the family  is the, is the best place in Europe for ambitious people to grow in the, and surrounded by the, by the best mindset, the best people and the best infrastructure in general. And for me, you know, that the story is super simple. I knew the family founders when I was building my first company.
And basically like when my company was starting to like go down and I was. Stop it they were about to start a family and they're like, oh, like you should join as a founder. And I was about to stop. So they say, oh, you should, you should start. You know, like you should start with us, you know, when you should just join, you know, like, and so that's what happened.
Like I literally joined as soon as as the family started. And, and what happened is that, you know, like we. Basically had these thesis about, the surrounding I mean the, around their entrepreneurs in Europe being toxic. Right? So like the ecosystem being toxic. And it was super simple for me to understand, because I had seen that as a founder in 2010, like you go to a party.
And you're like, oh, I am a startup founder in 2010. And people like, yeah, you don't have a job. You know, like that's what they 
hear. Right. So you're not like girls are not going to get your number. People are not going to talk to you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So you could argue that this was the best test for people to actually, you know, like be like super motivated and, and sort of like a natural selection that will only allow the most invincible founders to emerge and survive.
But that argument is, is a bit wrong because. At that time only the invincible founders could survive. Right? So like those founders that whether you put them in, in San Francisco, in, in Russia, in, in Greenland, they are going to make a billion dollar company. Right. And that's, that's always like a small subset of the humanity.
I think. What was the pitch of the family . And what we achieved in Europe was to say, you know, what, if we build an amazing non-toxic environment around the founders, a greater proportion of entrepreneurs will actually be successful because one of the learnings, cause I, I, I had, I spent three months in San Francisco trying to build up.
As well. And the biggest lesson for me in San Francisco was not that like, oh, that's, you know, like the, that they are amazing and this and that, it was like, wow, like it seemed credible. Huh? Average founders can be successful there because they're just propelled by an amazing infrastructure ecosystem.
And just like, you know, city in general that like even average people can succeed. And so the goal of the family  was to recreate artificially this bubble of healthy environments in a toxic European environment. S a greater subset of founders could be successful. And what that means was two, three things, three, four things, but like first was to change the mindset of that small environment.
So starting to create those memes. Right? So like now you were talking to each other, oh, like, ideas are worse, less execution is everything. That's a meme. You know, everybody understands that now Europe, like, yeah, sure. Even if. Then that necessarily from like an intuitive point of view, it's still on their mind and they're still going to say it.
And, and that was like, that was not the case at that time. At that time, everybody was judging ideas. She's like, I know you think about that. And it's like, Okay. we don't care about idea. So we recreated this place where every person in our community physical and digital , was getting the virus of those memes. Right? So like then if you, like, if you have a founder that enters these community is going to get trained for super fast, right. They're gonna be 
like, oh yeah, like, ideas are worth this. I was the worst. I send them there and be like, oh yeah, there's our, what's this right.
Let's just like a religion almost. Right. And so that's why like, defend me initially was built like as, as a. As a mix between a temple and a school. Cause it's not a school necessarily because we don't teach you things, you know, it's not like, 
oh, you're going to sit and we're going to teach you stuff. But that's where that's a place where you learn.
So it's sort of like a school, but not a school and also at temple because we're creating beliefs. So it's not a religion, but still it's belief centered. Right. So the main thing was that like mindsets community education and, and around those values that were non obviously in Europe. So ambitious.
Paid forward, you know, just like all like this positive sum game mentality, where if you help people in your community, it's not like a transaction where like, they're going to give you something back, but you're going to get paid later on and you don't know yet how it's kind of 
like karma for business.
So that was the first thing, make sure that we create debts and that spreads like a virus. And so that's people who intuitively feel like that, but hadn't put words. In, in like in those things where like, oh, you know what, like now when I, like, when I see the family , when I watch a video, when I, when I read an article, when I see a tweet, I'm like, oh one, I thought I was crazy, but actually I'm not.
Those people are like me, so maybe I'm not crazy. And too, like I'm not alone. Right? So like there's, those people exist. And so like people were getting out of the woods, right? Crazy founders that felt that something was wrong with the environments around entrepreneurship in Europe, they were building stuff, you know alone.
They're like, you know what, I'm going to get out of dues and I'm going to go to the family. And so that was the first thing, the second thing, obviously, and it's really going to be quicker. It was to build an infrastructure. What an infrastructure means is. The best tools, the best services, the best providers the best deals of everything, right?
Like we started to build that layer by layer. So then. We could delay the need for capital and we could also delay the death for startups. What I mean by that is that when you, when you, when you build a company and you want to talk to a lawyer in Europe at that time, there's a high chance that you'll talk to a lawyer that has never seen a company like a startup company.
And they were going to do like crazy shit deal for you. Like just like, oh no, vesting schedules, all of those things. Right? So like, We started to build layer by layer infrastructure of the best provider. If the provider didn't exist, we created the best providers. You know, we created like a lot of perks with the best startups.
So then startups could use other startups products for super cheap, et cetera, et cetera. And 
then the third thing was obviously capital and essentially what we did this fine, the best capital for founders, whether it's the best angel. And blacklist all the others that are just taking too much equity with bad terms, then the best VCs.
So at the beginning, we were starting to, we were just working with a few VCs because 90% of the VCs were toxic in Europe. But then slowly by slowly, that can become better and better and better. And so we're like just making sure to protect our founders from bad investors, bad actors in general, and so we that's, we did that for seven years beginning of that in Paris and then in the rest of Europe and. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:27:36] Yeah. I mean, very cool. And how, how did it work? Is it like you basically, is it like a cohort that you got together or is it like continuous that you could just apply to the family and to be part of it? Or how was the structured, the program?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:27:51] So I initially, I mean up until like a year ago there was no cohort. It was just like unrolling batches and, and it's for a super simple reason. The reason that. Cohorts existed for startup accelerator was for the demo day. Right. And so the demo day for the people who don't understand, it's just like, Oh you do three months of, of a, of an accelerator program as a startup.
And then at the end, you pitch like a crowd of investors and that's where you raise monies. Right? So like you could argue that like the accelerator was really. Yup. It's optimizing for your fundraising and fundraising. And it was, it was a really, really good solution for an American problem. You know, the problem in the U S is that like, you had too many startups between investors, but outlines, you need to, you need to structure that, right.
So like YC and all of those things work. Basically like trying to structure the fundraising process and obviously at the same time, create community and create intensity for the founders for those three months to be read like, blah, blah. So in Europe there was no good investors. So if you wanted to do demo day by definition, you had to fill up the room with shitty investors.
And so that defeats the purpose. Right. And, and the way that I pitched it was like, San Francisco. It makes sense to create an accelerator, you know, like like in, in 2007 when it started, why? Because San Francisco is an amazing startup infrastructure. It's an amazing startup city, right? So if you have an amazing startup city with the best roads, with the best cars, with the best light signals and everything, it makes sense to create a, a, an airport.
So then startups could take off in the middle of the city. Right. But when in Europe, you're in a desert. And you have no CD and it's fucking, you know, empty. You're not going to build the same airports in Europe. You're going to get something different. You know, you're going to build a city first.
And so what we created at the family was not an accelerator , per se, with this ramp of, you know, because there is nothing to be, to take for them. 
W w we build the city, right. We built a startup city that was super small at the beginning. Cause you're not going to be able to LA in day. Right. You're going to build a small village and it's sort of like, we're starting to create like a family, which is the smallest units, you know, like add to make you need that, to could create.
And then it became a village. And, and then, so now the the family that switched to a hundred percent online The family is doing a batch, because now you have enough of things around the founders. In Europe, you have enough towns of cities that you can start to build like a small airport. Right. And 
that's essentially the thinking behind 

Remo Kyburz: [00:30:21] I love the analogy. I think that makes complete sense. And also like, just to underline what you said, I think when you say that Europe was a desert, according investors, I think you, you talk about like, yeah. End of , like 2006, seven. Around that time. Right. And I think nowadays it's really changed.
You have a lot of us investors that came to Europe, a lot of VCs that could start in the last, let's say five, six years in Europe 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:30:45] yeah, five, six years, not 
2006, seven, 
like up until 2016. Roughly, that's where like things shifted, but you still had like a shit like shit. A lot of them like 
financial people that are, just like, and I mean, you could argue that financial VCs are, are the best. Right. Because they don't understand shit and they're like, you know, just let's, you know, let's try it or back those guys.
Right. And see what happens. Right. So that's cool because then now the VCs who. Often like ex founders, they think they know. And sometimes when you think too much that, you know, you're missing the stupid deal that looks to when you invest, but that actually would become like the outlier. 
So the shift we happened in 2016, but we started in 2013.
And, and now it's becoming, Yeah. like, like you said, like it's super cool, like the startup environment and the funding environment. It's super cool, but it's really recent. 
It's more recent than, than, than most. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:31:36] And how, like, if, you want to get involved with the family, I mean, I know, I know you're not part of the family anymore, but do you know how or. Target audiences. Can anyone in Europe that wants to start something apply and become part of it, or kind of what is the target group of, of the family?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:31:52] I'm gonna make sure to not say something in that period, but I think it's for everyone in the world right now, obviously most of the people who are going to be applying at the family are going to be European founders. But I think that's like, essentially now you can, you can actually apply from, from wherever you are.
Thanks. You know, the magic of the internet. And essentially like, yeah, it's like as, as already, as, as possible you should apply to the family. It doesn't mean that you're gonna, you know, you're going to get accepted first because obviously this is a program now that empowers founders. To actually raise money in the best condition as possible with the best people as possible.
And so if you are just starting building something, get in touch with the family to build the relationships and. That's would be like the perfect time. Then you will join and you will accelerate your, your fundraising process in, in I think it's seven or six weeks. So yeah, anytime it's just super easy apply, you know, like on the website and start building the relationships.
And I think that's, that's about that. I mean, it's called a family for a reason. The goal is to build a relationship. And, and you know that there's, it's never too early tobuild a relationship.. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:33:02] goods. Looking at a time, let's go to another topic. So we mentioned it in the intro. You are a big proponent of this creator economy and also what you mentioned, what you're building right now. So let's start with the creator economy. Don't need to go into full details, but what is the creative economy and why do you think It's more and more relevant. And then from there we can take it while you're building right now?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:33:26] Sure. I mean, the creator economy is one of the expression of the paradigm shifts that internet brought to the world. I call that the post permission world, the world, where you don't need to ask for permission anymore. And when you think about it, like even 15 years ago, 20 years ago, if you wanted to learn something, if you wanted to build something, if you wanted to distribute something you needed to ask for permission, respectively, from school banks and media.
And internet came and suddenly you don't need to ask the permission to anyone anymore. And, and so the first. Institution that emerged out of this revolution was the startup, you know, and obviously like 15 years ago even if in turn, it was still there. It was still super expensive to build a company, a startup, you know, you needed like roughly like five union to just launch something in 95 and gradually it became so cheap that now, like you and I could just with a couple of macbooks could just, you know,  build a company raise money, et cetera.
So we understand that we understood the startup movement and the startup phenomenon over the past 10 years. And essentially someone called Steve blank and nailed the definition of a start-up because people didn't know what a startup was. They thought it was a small company. They thought that startup was defined by size, et cetera, 
where actually startup is defined. Only one thing by scale, a startup is an organization that's scale and scale is super simple is because they leverage code and code at zero marginal cost of production, which means that if you run a line of code, whether it's one person that runs it or a thousand percent, it's the same cost for you, right. It's just like on a server and the marginal costs are, or like in like decreasing you. And you could argue that there's zero, but they're, they're super low. And so. The thing is that we theorize that it was mainly understood. And now we understand startup equals scale. Startup is an organization that's scaled.
What happens is that the costs became so low now and the infrastructure became so great that now even individual can scale, not organization, individual, and essentially a creator is to the startup. What an individual is to the organization. A startup is an organization that's scaled through code a creator is an individual that's scaled through media because both media and code have zero margin cost for production, where you put a video on the internet and a million people watches it, or one person is the same cost for you is the same.
And so this DNA is, is essentially the same. And so the creator economy is essentially what happened to the startup world, but at the individual level, And obviously those individuals, those YouTubers, those podcasters, those Shopify buyers are essentially scaling themselves without the permission from the old institutions.
And that's the fucking tsunami, because when you think about this Industrial world institutions were built on permission, the banks, the media, the schools, like every thing was built on the fact that 1%, at some point had the permission to tell you, you can have that or not. When in 10 years, 20 years max, when all of these, you know, it goes to shit.
Whether you like it or not, whether it's good or bad, I don't know. But what happens? It says the tsunami, like the dam literally broke and the tsunami of individuals that are empowered by the most magnificent leverage ever built the internet, come to the market, it's going to be chaos. And so the creator economy is really about this.
Like those individuals leveraging the media to scale themselves. Even more interestingly now are starting to leverage codes to even scale themselves. Increasingly what I mean by that is that. Podcasters and youtubers and all of those things , they had YouTube discover themselves right already, like just to replicate those videos to the infinite.
But now they also have the tools like built by other startups to empower themselves with accounting, et cetera, et cetera. So then all the S the stack, the tool stack that they use. Are just going to make them even more superhumans. And so that's really that the creator economy is about individuals that are using media to scale themselves, using tools and services, to even scale themselves at like a more important rate. And that's, you know, like a fucking fascinating when you think about it. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:37:54] Yeah,  something that really revolutionized the way you can leverage yourself as an individual, as you mentioned, and which would not have impulsive. 20 years ago. So , very interesting times are happening right now. And you see people with huge audiences, what they can achieve and what impact they can have on real world initiatives or things happening.
So yeah, that very interesting thing. And I honestly encourage people like to check out your sub stack.  you call it arm the creators.  You cover a lot of tools there, and also you have a few articles about the creative economy. So if people want to dive deeper, they can check that out.
Before we get to the end and to quick, rapid fire round. Just tell us again, what are you building right now? And is it mostly focused on YouTube or what is the audience that you're targeting?
Hugo Amsellem: [00:38:43] Yeah, absolutely. My thesis is that everything that I saw happen in the past 20 years around the startup, which essentially means like the sophistication of everything dedication to the memes, people understanding, you know, like what he's a startup, how to build a startup. And then, you know, this, this means spreading a lot, whether it's about doing fresh structure.
So new tools, new services, new providers, really specialized in service. That's, you know, speciphic a startup founder, et cetera. And obviously like the sophistication of the capital, right? Like where, you know, like the equity funding, like save all of the sophistication in general, that happened in 20 years because.
Our creator is also results of scale. That sophistication will happen also too, create a world. Right. So there's going to be like VCs. I mean, VCs, like investors that are gonna be specialized in creators. Like the whole ecosystem of creators focused on the creators is going to explode. Right. And so, because I see that happening, I, I, and I have a diff like a like a professional, like a deformation, or like if the official bias, because I did the family for four startups and I saw.
The benefits of creating our group of crazy people. That's then don't think they're crazy anymore because they're together. I'm like, okay, that, that needs to, happen for the creator world for a lot of different reasons that I obviously talked about for the family . And it's obviously the same for the creators right now, the environments around creator . It's super toxic for one central reason is because Los Angeles is based on a zero sum game mentality. What I mean by that is that because you have a limited number of seats at the film table at the TV show table, because you know, there's a finite amounts of movies that are going to be produced per year.
Then people are fighting against each other. For those seats. Right. And therefore like the, the, the mindset is, is specific where in San Francisco or in the startup. There's a positive sum mindset, which means that there's an unlimited market that is growing at an incredible rate so that the startup founders are not going to compete against each other.
They have an interests, almost like a an egoist is interest to help each other because then they're going to be helped in return. And I think that. One of the thing that I want to build as creating this creator accelerator is the first place where in Los Angeles , the creators are thinking. And the people around the creators are thinking with this positive sum game, because where LA and the film industry.
Like, you're just like limited number of seats. The creator economy just kills all of that because anyone can build an audience because it's in the world. Nobody needs the permission. So nobody's saying like, who deserves an audience? And that's how many people deserve an audience. 
Anyone in the world can, can build a massive audience.
And so the mindset is going to change. So the reason why I'm building this creator accelerator is that. The mindset around those creators needs to be different. And so I want to create like a different community that thinks like you and I, and then obviously the infrastructure needs to be a little bit different as well.
The providers, the lawyers, the accountants the directors, whatever, like all off the people working around those creators are going to be different than the LA mindset. And I want to create that infrastructure as well, and obviously the capital or we're going to invest.
Essentially twenty-five K in roughly 20 to 30 creators at the beginning, YouTubers that are in between 5k and 30 K subscribers. That's in terms of the ambition that they have are thinking about themselves as entrepreneurs. Also, not necessarily only entrepreneurs, but thinking about like creative founders sort of thing.
And they want to build something huge and we want to create the best space for them to. have the best chances of a massive success. And so we're going to invest 25 K in those early YouTube groups to actually give them six months to a year in front of them as like run rate. So they can really like be focused a hundred percent on their content and not having to take side gigs or side hustles, or like doing, being a provider for someone else, et cetera, et 
cetera.
So that's essentially what. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:43:00] I have to ask what, what is then kind of your, what do you get in return for providing them with this capital, this runway to focus fully on creating? 
Do you 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:43:10] a really good

Remo Kyburz: [00:43:10] like a revenue share later or is there some, have you thought about.

Hugo Amsellem: [00:43:14] Absolutely. I mean, and that's a topic that I'm really, really obsessed with because the, like the growth of the creator economy will be a function. People being able to invest in them and being rich with it, like make making money out of that because when you unlock that alignment of interests of investor investing and then becoming rich, Yeah, you unlocked like a shit load of capital.
And then obviously you unlock a shitload of creators, you know, like being able to give themselves the means of their ambition. What I mean by that is that right now you could say, oh, I'm going to invest in a creator. And the creator is going to create a company and I'm going to invest as like an equity deal.
But the thing is that today there is still not yet. A way that you can make sense out of equity investments for creators. Why? Because even if creators scale themselves, they don't have yet sort of like a textile valuation, there are yet valued for right reasons as a multiple. Of their cash flows, you know, like, so they're really about.
like cashflow.
So they're like getting brand deals, et cetera, even if they can, Chris amazing cash flows. It, devaluation is still going to be like,  the yearly revenue. Right? So it doesn't make sense so much to invest in equity in them. And therefore, because you can not invest in equity and. In dollar creator today, then like people are not investing like that.
People are investing in revenue base, right. So they're like, oh, I'm going to give you money. And then, you know, like you'll reimburse me out of your future revenue, but right now it happens. And it's, what's, what's really toxic is that most of the people are investing in creators by basically taking future revenue, like a share of the future revenue in perpetuity.
Right. So like, oh, I'm going to invest 10 K in your company, in your, in your self as a creator. And then I'm going to take 5%. Off your tree, 60 revenues forever. Right. And you're like that. I mean, that's cool for an investor if you become successful, but that's super toxic because you know, you're stuck with that person just taking money from you for 
forever. And then it's difficult to value the value of forever, et cetera. So like, how do you get out of those deals? You're like, I don't know. And so what I, what I want to pioneer is a financial instrument to invest in creators in a healthy way today. So. Sort of like an ISA, so in income share agreement, but at the company level, not at the individual level.
So it means that you invest 25 K and then you get 20% of their revenue. I like after threshold, you know, so after like extra that they make, so they can pay themselves first. And then one, you have a limit in the time. So like, sort of like after seven years, you're not going to take more money and you also have a cap, which is like, after they reimbursed three or four X of the initial investment, they're like, you know, it's not like a depth instrument because they're just like free.
And, and the goal is to also have that. You know, what, like investment being convertible into like equity at the preferred or a discount in case then the creators as an asset class, as a, as a, as an entrepreneur or as a, as an institution starts to not only have. Cashflow evaluations, but starts to have tech valuation because they scale themselves to incredible Heights.
Right. So right now, most of the money that a creator makes is about like brand deals and ads, revenue, et cetera, but right. Yeah.
no, there was a shitload of business infrastructure that is being built as to scale the crew on merge on educational product, et cetera, et cetera, that then could have tech multiple because they have tech leverage.
Right. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:46:50] Hmm.

Hugo Amsellem: [00:46:51] I want to have these deals that can be an ISA for the creator at the company level, that he's super healthy, but that could also convert then as an option to equity. If that creator grows super ambitious. And if that creators actually is building a commerce empire, a notification empire out of the audience and the attention that they gathered on the social platform.
And that's what I think will unlock the, the a hundred X growth for the whole creator economy, happens. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:47:19] that's super cool. And I think also like just thinking a bit further, you even create almost a new asset class also then like, as investing in, in creators. So but I think that's a topic for another discussion. So if you have time for one or two last questions, So just switching to the rapid fire questions, just we'd like to get your first thoughts around like favorite book or resource you have.
Maybe one that had a big impact on yourself. But it could also be related to the creative economy itself. If there's something that you would recommend people to check out.

Hugo Amsellem: [00:47:52] I got into the Nassim Taleb rabbit hole, like a few years. And I've and I've yet to get out.
of it. I think that Nassim Taleb has written a masterpiece over the years that are structured in four books. But at our, you know, like those four books are just one book essentially, you know?
And, and I think that, that those books actually, where the book. Changed the operating system in my mind the most. And I, and I, and I think that those books also in general, true, like as like in temporal truce sometimes. Right? So like just learnings from history and learnings from like human natures and societies, et cetera.
But weirdly enough, there. Absolutely relevant in a really profound and deep way in the internet age with this kind of like like internet inequality of return. Right. So like, cause people can scale, then the winners are going to be big. Right? So like that's change of parroting because people couldn't scale like that before is, is like, and it's weird, but like necessary.
From is almost like in temporal thinking really understood and wrote books that helps anyone to understand. That's you know, like future and that sort of like internet based in. And so I really encourage anyone to read, anti-fragile to read fooled by randomness to read a black Swan and obviously skin in the game, because I think those are the pillars of understanding the world as it works today.
And as it will increasingly work tomorrow. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:49:37] Yeah. Fully agree with those books. so I have to read the black Swan. It it's on my list and I read fooled by randomness, but yeah. Yeah. 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:49:44] is the best for me. Like he was 
just like, give it a try. It's incredible. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:49:48] Cool. Yeah, I, it's definitely very high on my list of books to read. I'm really looking forward to that one. Great. Then let's go to the last question.
So I always ask this my guests.  what does courage mean to you personally? Like coping the terms of starting something, but also whatever it means for you ?

Hugo Amsellem: [00:50:05] It's really difficult. I, I, because I asked myself this question regularly, you know, and, and, and I have no answers to be Frank. Why? Because.
So, let, let let's put it that way. Whether you start a company or you do whatever in life, I think there is three options for you. You know, you can optimize for three different things, essentially you can optimize for security. You can optimize for freedom or are you coming to my eyes for glory? And there's no correct answers, obviously.
Right? But this, like, the question is really interesting to ask yourself some people want to optimize for, for security. They think a job and everything is fine, but if you consciously, you want to optimize for security because. Surroundings because of your situation. There's nothing wrong with that.
Some people have teammates for freedom. So they're like freelancers . They're like bootstrap founders. They don't want to take any investment. They just want to have freedom. Right. They didn't want anyone to manage. They want any board, they don't want anyone to invest in themselves. And just want to be about themselves. Right. So there are still risks, right. But it's a bit mitigated. And then there are people who are optimizing for. glory , you know, I think that courage is, is essentially about optimizing your life for glory. And right now we're talking about like, oh, raise money, like take risks, like go big or go home, et cetera.
But I'm a bit because we talking about courage, right? So. Oh, for sure. It's, it's really courageous to build a company and raise money and just try to either like be huge or just die. But I think that courage essentially was about people going to war. At the time. And, and I liked the story about like, you know, like the, the, like a child's eye shield, like the guy from Troy, like pod 
PT and Troy, you know, before, before he went to war, like, he's just like asks he's wives, Ashley gauche, like, nah, he's like, ah, whatever.
And then the wife, I think she says like, okay, you know what? Like you don't, you, you, you could stay. You know, you're like, you're a tribe's leader . You know, if you stay there, people are going to love you. Like, you know, like your, your kids are, remember you, your grandkids are remember you, but then after a couple of generations, people would be like, who the fuck was this guy?
Like, oh yeah. Like, I don't know. And oh, you can go to the war rights and fights the greatest fight there is, and you'll probably die. 90% of chance you'll die. But if you do, and if. We're going to write songs about you and people like for generations are going to sing your praise. And, and I think there's no good thing, right?
But like, I think courage first is to one, realize what game you want to play? What do you want to optimize four : security, freedom, or glory.. And then like on another level, the other level of courage is to actually have. The courage to choose for glory at some point in your life. Not necessarily all the time, but at some point of your life, you need to optimize for glory because if you don't, then you'll never know, and that's the worst to just die and be like, what if I could have been glorious?
You know, maybe you're trying to be, you fell, but you know, yada, yada, it was up for me. But what if I think that's, that's that's courage. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:53:16] Okay. I think that's one of the best answers I've got through that question. So I really liked your answer. 
 
Those are this I mean, do we really think about these three things? Like, what do you want to optimize for? I, it really makes you think. Yeah. So thank you for that. And with that, thanks again, Hugo, for coming on the podcast.
Just last question. Where can people find you? Where can people find more 
about what you're building? 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:53:37] Twitter, at Hugo Amsellem , A M S E L L E M. So like, yeah. That's where most of my professional and personal connections are happening these days. So yeah. Use Twitter guys and girls. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:53:50] Great. And your newest company is called Jellysmack, right? 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:53:54] Yeah. I mean, that's the company that has just joined Jellysmack , creator go big. 

Remo Kyburz: [00:53:59] Perfect. So thank you so much. You go and good luck with your future adventures and ventures. So all the 

Hugo Amsellem: [00:54:07] Cheers. Thanks for having me.  
 
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