- Today, I'll tell you how the Try Guys became independent, from my perspective. - From my perspective. - From my perspective. - And the not stupid perspective. No, I'm kidding. (steady upbeat music) - Before we explain why we left BuzzFeed, we wanna tell you about our flash sale. This Cyber Monday, get 25% off everything on tryguys.com, and up
to 50% off select items! All right, boys, go on, you have a video to do! (steady calm music) We left BuzzFeed, when did we leave BuzzFeed? We left BuzzFeed April 7th? Or April 11th. - Mid-April of a year that was 2018? - Some of you might not know this but I left BuzzFeed three months before the other guys, in January 2018. - April 2018. - I don't remember time. (steady music) - After four years of working at BuzzFeed, we had a great time but
we were on contract. Those contracts were expiring. - We were, well, should we stay or go? - I think all of us had
been planning on leaving at some point. - The best way to grow was to leave and to strike out on my own. - More autonomy, more creative control, ownership over my own work,
flexibility in my schedule. - Very much focused on getting my sort of independent career started. - Quite frankly, they
didn't wanna pay us enough. (laughing) (upbeat steady music) - Whose idea was it to start
an independent company? I'm not really sure. - We had a lot of talks
about what is gonna be the future of the Try Guys, and really, we were at
a point where we were never gonna make a video
together ever again. - Zach was the one who was
initially really pushing and exploring the idea of
what this whole operation would look like. - I requested with all the guys that we take a meeting together. That we all get in a room and talk about, What do we want and what do we see the possibilities being? - And then I would give credit to Ned for actually putting numbers to ideas. - We all went to Zach's
place and I walked the team through a spreadsheet of everything that I thought we could do. - He fucking loves spreadsheets. Ned loves spreadsheets so much. - I like doing spreadsheets. - Is it going to be more
financially beneficial? More creatively fulfilling? So I guess Ned. - So I guess Ned, I don't know. - But it was my idea. - Zach's gonna be so mad
if he hears me say Ned. - Who'd they, whose idea
did they say it was? - [Crewman] You'll see in the video. - They said it was Ned's idea. - I don't know if the other guys can talk so much about what goes
into starting a company. - The basis of the company, there's so many things that
go into creating a company that are even outside of
my realm of expertise. - The basics of the
company involve a lot of horrible, boring, bullshit. - First you have to come
up with the company name and a corporate structure and a, ownership situation. So then you got your payroll, you got your health
insurance, you got your 401K. Those kind of general benefits to add for our employees, to make people feel happy, satisfied. Obviously you got to
get good snacks as well. - We were like, we'll
name our company this! And then right after we're
like oh, no our company should not be named that,
it should be named this. So then we had to literally
file paperwork to cancel previous paper work. - You put all that on a
document and then you fill out some forms, put it to
the state, put it to the federal government. - It is awful, to start a company! (upbeat music) - I was off shooting a feature and Ned was dealing with his new
house and baby that was just born. Keith and Zach both were
here and put together a lot of the basics for the first videos in the channel and all of the equipment that we needed. - Our first standing desk! - [Keith] You look ridiculous! - You look ridiculous! - There were so many
things that we were used to having that I think we
took for granted and so we had to start from scratch. It was like, okay, what cameras and broken lights do you all personally own? Oh, I think we're going to need this lens, we're going to need this
janky tripod will work. - And we were literally
working out of a house that Ned was still moving out of. I showed up and there's
an infant, not just a baby, Wes is an infant. And we're trying to do
work around an infant. That's a tiny baby. Like, he's like. (upbeat music) - The colors! The try guys' colors. The colors more or less came from Eugene. - I sort of created the
four color theory pallette that eventually became
our channel art and a lot of our merchandise. - Give us sex Zach, give us sex. - [Zach] Sex? - We have some color affinities. I like red because it rhymes with Ned. - Ned always loves red because it rhymes with his name. - Apparently, the fact that
his name rhymes with Ned is something that we should care about. - Keith likes blue squares. - Even though he's totally
abandoned that love. I haven't seen that boy
wear blue squares for over a year! And then we were left
with like, okay, we could do purple, we could do
yellow, we could do green. Eugene said I can't be
yellow because that's racist! I said that's a fair point! - I picked purple because
it's the gayest color. And it also happens to
be a very royal color, so it's a super gay queen! - And then, I was left with the choice between green and yellow. I think yellow doesn't look good on me. So I chose green. I feel good about that choice. (upbeat rock music) - Was the first thing the Taco Bell video? Because, no, no. - The first videos we filmed were the parenthood series,
because we didn't have any money and we didn't have
any equipment and the most important thing
happening to us, or really to Ned was his baby coming
and being born, Wes. We clearly messed with
that because Keith is like, in a diaper half that video. (cheering) - [Male Voice] The ring baby! (cheering) - After so much stress about
navigating this leaving of Buzzfeed, it was so
excited to actually be on set filming with the other guys again. - It was like, like the
good old days, right? We were like handing off cameras. We were like running
sound with each other. We just didn't have
enough staff, so everyone was doing every job. - It's a good thing we
filmed it when we did because she like,
actually had the baby like a week or so later. (baby screaming) (gentle steady music) - Wow! When the channel
first premiered there was so much anticipation and excitement! - The day we launched was crazy! I mean, really just
everything leading up to the launch was so stressful! - When the channel went live, it was a huge sense of relief. It was a good, nearly half
year of us being quiet about what we were working on. - All these questions
on Twitter like, guys! Where are the Try Guys? Are you done? Are you friends anymore? And meanwhile I'm working harder on this than I ever worked before! And I'm, I have so much cool stuff coming, you just don't know yet!
You just don't know! - It was crazy because we
had actually made two channel intros, one for a
different name, and one for the Try Guys. Because literally until
the night before, we didn't know if we were going to be the Try Guys. Hence, all of the paperwork
about what company name we would have. Horrible, boring, bullshit. (slow classical music) - The first subscriber was me! And we were all, we
were all hanging out in the room and I realized
that we had no subscribers - I was the first subscriber,
but then I unsubscribed because I didn't want to blow the cover. So Zach will say he's the
fist subscriber, cause he saw it go from zero to one. I'm telling you, about a
month and a half before that when we actually created
the channel, I subscribed just to make sure it was
working and then unsubscribed. - It was me. (gentle steady music) - Wow, God, I don't want to throw any video under the bus. Cause if it's a video I
didn't make, I probably shouldn't answer that one. - You know, I'm not a big
fan of the Barkchshler. (dramatic music) - Probably the Barkchshler. (dramatic music) - I didn't watch every
episode of the Barkchshler. (dramatic music) - I just don't care about dogs that much! So sue me. I just, it's not my journey. - He's the only Try Guy without dogs! It makes no sense why
he'd be judging dogs. - They're difficult, you grow, they love you unconditionally,
because they're dogs. (steady classical music) - The best video on our
channel is the lap-sitting saga of Eugene. It is pure joy, it is chaotic-good on the alignment chart. It is like off the chaotic-good, it is like, insanity-good. I feel like all the fans like, were in on the joke. It was just like a giant inside joke and it's a beautiful piece of art. - All of the videos with Wes
are probably my favorite, but I think my favorite
has to be, either the Try Guys meeting Ned's baby, or Eugene babysitting Wes. - Do you want to hold him? - No, I don't. - Okay. Being able to show what
my world was day in, day out, and then expose
these three other guys to that was really special. - On this new channel
we worked together a lot but we also get to make
projects that kinda showcase our personal styles and loves. And I think Candid
Competition is just like, my wacky humor taken to the enth degree. - I think my favorite video is probably my coming out video. Mainly because, it not
only allowed me to sort of express myself to the online audience through the film making style and voice and performance that I prefer. It was really wonderful to see that it had a lot of impact for
a lot of young people out there, especially
who are struggling with their identity. So I was very fortunate
to be in a position that I was able to create that. (steady music) - It's been such a
whirlwind, it really has been one of the greatest and
most rewarding things I have ever gotten to do. - It feels great, it's awesome! We have a robust staff,
there's like 15 people in this single bathroom home. (laughing) - I am so happy, I feel so proud. - It feels amazing to be able to own and operate your own company. - Being able to do it with my best friends and my new best friends,
all the people that we work with and collaborate with. - We really are a really
well-oiled machine and it also feels like
we're big but small. We're still able to have like little happy hours where we all get together. We make jokes as a big team. - To have the ability
to say, hey if we want to start a podcast, we
just start a podcast. Or if we want to go on
a tour, we just like make that happen. - And also doing it with
you guys, being on this journey with everyone whose
watched and supported, both directly on our
Patreon, but also just with your views and with your love. - And I don't think we
would have been able to do that if we were still working
for a different company. Because, there's a lot
more protocol in place. And here, guess who creates the protocol? These guys! Guess who runs HR? Nobody! We don't have HR. Shots for everybody! (upbeat classical music) - The goal I have for
our channel is to be able to expand even beyond us. Because I think that
what we're trying to put out in the world is a
message of inclusivity but also daringness to
explore things that you are afraid of or uncomfortable with. And I don't think that's limited to the four Try Guys. I think that is something
that is vastly expansive. And something that should be expressed from other people's perspectives. - But this year I want
to get into more scripted videos on the channel. I've been trying to
bring those elements into our unscripted work, but
yeah, I'm going to make some scripted pieces up in this bitch. - We're going to have different shows, we're going to have each
of those shows be on a different day of the week. We're looking to take to Netflix. We're looking to take to TV. We're looking to do
everything we possibly can. - My goal for our channel
by this time next year is to have over 10 million subscribers because I know we have 25
million different independent viewers watching our
content every 90 days, so why we only got 6 million subscribers? What you all doing? My goal is to be bigger, I mean, there is no
reason we should have less subscribers than Jake Paul! No reason to have less
subscribers than James Charles! No reason to have less subscribers than, several people who have more! - You know if you
subscribe maybe we'll make another season of The Barkchshler! (dramatic music) - We're a production company! There's four of us! We should have forty
million subscribers, right? What do you want? I'm eating so much! I have to go to the doctors so much more! Just to get blood tests to make sure I'm not killing myself!
Eugene Lee Yang was a great podcast guest