As Big Media becomes ever more consolidated, Studios71 is preparing to launch a flotilla of startup media businesses in the coming years.

The creator services company is designed to fulfill a range of production, marketing, distribution, advertising and sponsorship sales functions for its social media star clients. The end game is to turn personalities into brands that harness the power of their followings in social media first and foremost.

On the latest episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business,” Studio71 co-CEOs Adam Boorstin and Matt Crowley walk through the company’s evolving business ventures and growth engines. The pair say there are abundant opportunities for creators and influencers who have finely tuned brands and know how to tend to their followers.

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“Entrepreneurialism is a word that sort of gets thrown around a lot. These creators really started their business as a startup. There is a side to them that is very creative. And a lot of them have a side to them that is extremely entrepreneurial,” Boorstin said. “We’ve seen a lot of great transitions where talent has started making very simple beauty videos that go on YouTube. And then they are able to expand into starting a podcast, to starting to get involved in their own line of beauty products. They’re very much optimizing their business.”

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Depending on their niche, social media creators have ample opportunities to grow their bottom line and enhance their brand with licensing and merchandising deals, retail and e-commerce. But media remains at the core. Boorstin learned the art of building a multiplatform brand from his experience as an early employee of Buzzfeed.

“It was this elaborate operation with a team of analytics professionals, a team of editors, producers and people just focused on optimizing the thumbnails and the art that you click on when you watch videos,” Boorstin said. “And I remember thinking, Wow, that’s it’s such an incredible sort of apparatus that’s been built. Imagine if that were applied to the creator space, where a lot of talent are building audiences that are just as big as any publisher, but they’re making videos in their basement. So we wanted to provide that infrastructure and a full set of resources across advertising and production and distribution, to really help creators grow and become their own media company.”

Some of the most successful creators start out with modest ambitions to experiment with social media posts, and suddenly they find they’ve touched a nerve. YouTube stars (and Studio71 clients) Family Gaming team, or FGTeeV, is a good example, per Boorstin. For starters, FGTeeV has amassed more than 22 million subscribers to its YouTube channel.

“It was really a man making videos with his son and playing games. And FGTeeV has been able to transition the business to become something that’s much bigger and really just an empire. They’ve started to launch their own FAST channels, which is something that we help them with. They’ve definitely expanded in to the graphic novel space,” Boorstin said. “FGTeeV is a great example of something that started just with video game commentary and is now becoming a fantastic business and incredibly entertaining property.”

Studio71 generally keeps a low profile as a corporate brand, preferring to put the spotlight on its clients. In aggregate, the company’s standing in the wide world of digital video keeps rising. As of January 2023, the Studio71 Network ranked No. 6 among YouTube partners (behind Warner Music, Sony BMG and other large music conglomerates) and No. 13 among YouTube’s top video properties. YouTube is a big engine for Studio71 clients but it is no longer the only options for grassroots content distribution, as it was just a few years ago.

“We have structured ourselves to be a creator services company that works across many different platforms,” said Crowley, who has a background in advertising sales having worked for Hulu, A+Networks and AOL prior to joining Studio71 in 2017 as chief revenue officer. “What has really allowed us to thrive is expanding that reach across every medium possible. Our ad sales business is something that is pretty expansive. We’re packaging up inventory and selling ads across everything from YouTube, to connected TVs to audio to Snapchat — a variety of different platforms.”

“Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. New episodes debut every Wednesday and can be downloaded on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartMedia, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud and more.

(Pictured top: Studio71 stars including the Family Gaming team, aka FGTeeV, in top row)

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