Ludwig Launches Creative Agency to Beat Burnout

Author

Calvin Caracciolo
October 05, 2022

Read Time5 min 3 sec

What’s up everyone! Welcome to our channel. This is Creator Business. We’re the weekly newsletter that will cross our fingers that your video editor doesn’t crash.

Here’s what the algorithm was pushing last week:

  • Ludwig launches his creative agency, Offbrand

  • Dude Perfect announces plans for a massive HQ

  • Mr. Beast reveals why he turned down a $1B offer

LUDWIG LAUNCHES HIS NEW CREATIVE AGENCY, OFFBRAND

Whether or not you’re a gamer, you’ve probably heard of Ludwig, the highly popular streamer who’s amassed over 3.5M YouTube subscribers and has branched out into a variety of different content formats.

Since he first started streaming full-time in 2019, Ludwig has gone on to accomplish some crazy headline-making feats, including:

Despite his success, Ludwig knows his days in the spotlight aren’t infinite – in fact, he’s getting ahead of the dreaded creator burnout that many streamers face.

That’s a big reason why he’s launched his creative agency, Offbrand to help prolong this content creation career and help other creators make big moves too.

Sooo, what is Offbrand?

Offbrand is an agency and studio that will help creators create their own events and series from all angles, like ideation, production, and funding.

But the funding part is key here, because unlike your typical bedroom wall videos, events are hella expensive – even more so than a video game livestream with a top-of-the-line PC and high-end broadcasting equipment.

In July, Ludwig even said that Mogul Money Live lost him and his team $149,500.

Who else is behind Offbrand?

Other than Ludwig Ahgren, Offbrand’s team includes:

  • Nick Allen, Ludwig’s longtime collaborator and manager

  • Nathan Stanz, a fellow content creator

  • Brandon Ewing, a former Twitch marketing specialist

Unlike a traditional agency, Offbrand doesn’t look for any upfront investment from the creators they’re working with – they just want to help make good content.

You might have already caught some of Offbrand’s work.

Offbrand has already developed a series for Félix Lengyel, aka xQc, the Twitch king, a Forbes Top Creator, and a former professional Overwatch player.

On September 30, xQc premiered “Juiced”, a six-part live game show where teams of two compete against each other in physical and trivia competitions.

In good ol’ Ludwig and Offbrand fashion, the series broke Twitch records and garnered plenty of viewership.

Reacting to: Ludwig launching Offbrand

Reacting To: Ludwig launching Offbrand

Creators spend most of their waking hours keeping up with their content schedules. Oftentimes, that means they don’t have the time to explore other content mediums and run big events that could be both extremely lucrative and act as a “Super Bowl” moment to bring in new fans.

Having an agency run by creators that does all the heavy lifting for these events is a win for everyone. The talent gets to expand their brand and the agency can probably take a massive cut of the profits from the event because of how challenging it is to source funding and plan logistics for events.

DUDE PERFECT ANNOUNCES THEIR PLANS FOR A MASSIVE HQ

Dude Perfect, the five guys dudes who make crazy sports and comedy YouTube channel with over 58M subscribers, has revealed their plans for their new headquarters, and well, it kinda both is and isn’t what you’d exactly expect from the OG kings of trickshots.

As both their new corporate HQ and an entertainment destination, the new Dude Perfect HQ will give fans the ultimate in-person, family-friendly trickshot experience.

But the shiniest part of this new project? The 330-foot tower that looks like an airplane-stingray hybrid. Make the shot from the top of this, and they just might give you a cool $1M.

All together, it will be a potentially $100M project… but first, it will have the find a home.

You’ve heard of Slam City, but have you heard of Trick Shot Town?

That’s what this project is currently named, and Dude Perfect wants it to have three main focuses: Sports, Entertainment, and Faith. 

Being a family-oriented venue is a big part of this project, but they also want to make it accessible. That means, not everything will require paid admission.

Inside the facility and multi-acre site, there will be plenty for visitors to explore:

  • The Dude Perfect Museum dedicated to retelling the traditional tale of Dude Perfect’s origin story

  • Restaurants that may or may not be Dude Perfect themed

  • Retail stores in case you and your family don’t already own enough Dude Perfect merch

  • Water features and outdoor attractions

  • Two acres of public outdoor park space for large gatherings and attraction partnership with Dude Perfect corporate partners

You might be wondering how they’re planning on bringing this project to life. 

Dude Perfect has partnered with San Antonio architecture firm Overland Partners and they’ve been working on concept designs for the past year.

They are exploring municipal partners across the country, with their eye on LA and Atlanta, even though their current HQ is located in Frisco, Texas.

Overland Partners has an impressive portfolio including SoFi Stadium, AT&T Stadium, and the US Bank Stadium.

Reacting To: Dude Perfect's new HQ

We really think Overland Senior Principal Bryan Turbey nailed it with he said, “When you can create a physical representation of what makes a brand so iconic, that's enormously powerful.”

This is one of the largest expansions of a content creator’s world into the real world we’ve ever seen, so if you need us once this thing opens, we’ll probably be camping out at the giant trick shot tower trying to win a million bucks.

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MR. BEAST TURNED DOWN $1B FOR HIS CHANNEL

Would it even be an issue of Creator Business if we didn’t talk about Mr. Beast?

Jimmy Donaldson (aka Mr. Beast) is the first “paper” YouTube billionaire and recently revealed on a podcast that he turned down a $1 billion offer to buy his YouTube channel and all of his businesses. Read that again. Mr. Beast turned down $1 billion.

What happened?

Mr. Beast revealed on the September 27 episode of the FLAGRANT podcast that he had been offered a “pretty crazy” deal.

“Not official term sheets, but people that would actually be able to afford it… a billion dollars if we could own the channel and the companies,” he said.

Translation: A rich person casually said to Jimmy they would buy everything for $1 billion, without actually making a legal offer

That deal would’ve included his English and international YouTube channels, his fast food brand Mr. Beast Burger, and his snack brand, Feastables.

So, like 👀, why would he turn it down?

Jimmy felt that at the time, his business was worth closer to $10 - $20 billion. Making the $1B look like a pretty lowball offer.

Reacting To: Mr. Beast turning down $1B

It’s unlikely Jimmy would ever sell all of his businesses wrapped together. His YouTube channels, for example, are so directly tied to his likeness that any deal he could get for them wouldn’t be a high enough to meet the actual value of his channels, because there would be the significant risk of what might happen if Jimmy were to ever leave the business down the line.

At this stage, the most likely outcome is he might sell one of his affiliate businesses like Feastables, that can stand on its own much easier and roll up into a bigger conglomerate business.

Also, let’s just acknowledge how crazy it is that the guy who five years ago spent 17 hours saying Logan Paul 100,000 times just turned down $1 billion for his business. Wow.

Also on the FYP

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.