David Dobrik is Breaking into the Pizza Biz

Read Time6 min 24 sec

What’s up everyone! Welcome to our channel. This is Creator Business. We’re the *bi-weekly* newsletter that’s kinda sad that Twitter won’t be in our stock tracking table anymore ☹ (Thanks, Elon) 

Yes, you read that right, and no, we’re not going to gaslight you into thinking we’ve always been a bi-weekly newsletter.

We’ve decided to release our Creator Business newsletter every other week instead of every week because ya boi is shooting his shot at launching his YouTube channel this month.

Consistency and quality beat quantity in our opinion, and writing a high-quality newsletter once every two-weeks is just more manageable for now ☺

Here’s what the algorithm was pushing last week:

• David Dobrik's making pizza out of Doughbrik's

• The first YouTube-Made billionaire

• Mr. Beast is raising $150 million

DAVID DOBRIK IS BREAKING INTO THE PIZZA BIZ

YouTuber David Dobrik is opening a new pizza restaurant on LA’s Sunset Boulevard next month – joining the ranks of a couple other creators who have branched out into real-world retail and hospitality lately.

He’s naming it Doughbrik’s – because if you weren’t already aware (no shame in that, this is a safe space), David’s last name is pronounced “dough-brick”.

David, who was the king of vlogs about two years ago, is taking on this new venture with one of his troublemaking sidekicks, aka former member of his Vlog Squad, Ilya Fedorovich.

…Vlog… Squad…?

The Vlog Squad was a group of content creators who used to be featured regularly on David’s videos. David, a Vine celebrity turned YouTube royalty, had one of the hottest channels (18.2M subscribers!) known for high-paced videos packed with action, humor, and general shenanigans.

David actually had plans for Doughbrik’s two years ago, but it was put on hold when his career took a rough turn.

One of the members of his Vlog Squad was accused of rape, and another member, Jeff Wittek, sued David after being injured while filming a stunt for one of his video.

David lost a lot of his sponsorships because of this, and his YouTube channel hasn’t seen any new uploads for the past 7 months.

So what’s the prognosis, doc?

Despite his YouTube career tanking, David remains fairly popular on TikTok with 26.3M followers – but it’s still not quite like his former glory days. It’s uncertain how successful Doughbrik’s will actually be because he doesn’t have the same star-power as some other massive creators like Mr. Beast.

Reacting To: David Dobrik's new pizza joint

This will certainly be, well, interesting, to say the least. It’s going to be an experiment that will really put creator popularity to the test when it comes to expanding into new verticals like this.

It’s also important to consider that David’s brand isn’t directly tied to pizza or food, so he might find it challenging to communicate to his fans why they should actually be going the this restaurant.

When Mr. Beast launched Beast Burgers across the country through the use of ghost kitchens (a delivery app order only type of deal), it worked well because his audience was global. But David is only opening *one* restaurant in *one* city, where only a small percentage of his fan base lives.

To be successful, he’ll need to rely heavily on the challenging task of capturing the average LA resident’s interest, including people who don’t know his brand.

VTUBE HITS $1B

So here’s one you may or may not have heard of… (you’ll see what I did there in just a sec).

26-year-old Riku Tazumi founded his company Anycolor as a university student back in 2017. Anycolor owns the agency and brand Nijisanji, which employs 140 creators that work on virtual YouTubers, aka, VTubers.

Well, Riku’s company was listed in the biggest stock exchange in Japan last year, and it’s currently valued at a whopping $2.1 billion. With a 45% ownership stake, that has Riku sitting pretty on equity worth $1B.

That’s right - $1 billion USD.

And he never even had to show his face on YouTube. As the first known YouTube billionaire as valued by public markets (the Japanese stock exchange in this case), Riku reached this height of success not being a creator himself, but by creating a scalable brand powered by VTubers.

VTubers and Nijisanji Explained

VTubers are animated characters featured in YouTube videos produced using human motion tracking software and sometimes a voice changer. Many VTubers stream online video games while interacting with their viewers live. It’s something you really have to see to understand.

VTube, and Nijisanji in general, is something like a cross between cartoon characters and play actors.

What makes Nijisanji’s VTubers such a great asset

• Nijisanji’s characters always appear the same to the audience, meaning they can grow their brand by hiring more actors to make more videos as the same characters

• VTubers are perfect for scaling because you can swap out the actors who play the VTubers behind the scenes and continuously pump out content without relying too much on individual talent

• Nijisanji can easily create and introduce new characters as needed

• With lower operating costs than a real-life human idol, this makes live events much more attainable, and Nijisanji can use their characters’ brand to sell merchandise

Reacting To: VTuber brand valued at over $1B 

It’s interesting that the first YouTube-made billionaire isn’t actually a content creator but someone who’s built a brand through a cast of VTubers. These VTubers are scalable in the same way a theatrical play is scalable by having multiple actors play the same character across multiple shows.

Mr. Beast is doing the opposite – starting with the non-scalable thing, such as featuring himself as the central talent or as the game show host of a video – and then he launches his scalable brands like Feastables and Beast Burger. These brands don’t really require his physical presence to be successful.

In the case of Riku Tazumi, he started with solving the non-scalable talent problem by creating characters that can be popular around the world, rather than having the constraint of one face of his brand. Well played, Riku, well played.

MR. BEAST IS TRYING TO RAISE $150M

Speaking of Mr. Beast and money (duh), the YouTube star and entrepreneur is looking to raise around $150 million from investors for his business, which he currently values at roughly $1.5 billion.

This will be the first $100M+ venture capital raise we’ve ever seen for a YouTube based company, even though it’s just rumors at this point. Right now, the entire stock market is doing terribly with big tech getting dragged in the mud, but Mr. Beast is out here raising $150M (mmkay, we see you).

The State of the Beast

Jimmy Donaldson (aka Mr. Beast) says the money will go towards further expanding his empire into the world of restaurants, consumer goods, and merchandise.

Although Forbes pegs Jimmy at making over $54M a year, it’s still hard to say how this new investment will be structured. Night Media, the talent company that managers Mr. Beast, has played a key role in launching some of Jimmy’s consumer ventures like Feastables and Beast Burger. It’s unknown how much of an equity stake they own in his businesses.

Feastables raised $5M in January while at a $50M valuation. It brings in tens of millions in revenue a year, while Beast Bruger reported earning over $100M in revenue earlier this year.

Reacting To: Mr. Beast raising $150M

I’m calling it right now, take a screenshot with a timestamp because this is a bold prediction, and this guy wants his credit when it’s due.

In the next 30 years, if Mr. Beast doesn’t sell any of his businesses, Mr. Beast stock (after Beast Enterprises inevitably goes public), will be worth more than Disney stock.

If I’m wrong and we’re both still kicking at 50-ish years old, send me a message and we’ll get lunch at a Beast Burger in the metaverse 😎

Also on the FYP

• Logan Paul’s PRIME Hydration Looks to Powders, Energy & International Expansion

• Twitch Streamer Ludwig Has Created His Own Line Of Bidets

• Twitter is Planning to Start Charging $20 per Month for Verification

That's all for now. See ya next week! 

About Calvin Caracciolo, Editor-in-Chief of Creator Business

Calvin Caracciolo is a content creator who keeps you up to date with the fast-moving world of business in the creator economy. He’s also a really great guy!

Contact him about anything creator economy related at [email protected]. Follow him at tiktok.com/@calvincaracciolo and subscribe to his YouTube channel if Shorts are more of your thing.