Jake Paul
Team 10
Creating Team 10
In 2016, Jake Paul launched his most prestigious venture of his career: Team 10. When creating Team 10, Paul took inspiration from tech startup incubators and the music mogul Dr. Dre. In an Interview with New York times Paul spoke about following in Dr. Dre’s footsteps:
“He was a celebrity himself, and then he took that, brought people under his wing, taught them how to make music, and then put those people in front of his audience. [...] And then he used that network to launch different companies and go into merchandising, obviously his big one being Beats by Dre” (4).
Who is Dr. Dre?
In this quote Paul is referencing Dr. Dre, a grammy nominated and winning artist and a successful business owner. Dr. Dre turned his music career into a multi-billion dollar business when he launched Beats by Dre, an audio company selling headphones, speakers and more. Not only did Dre create his own merchandising, he also discovered and nurtured smaller musicians and used his platform to help grow their careers. Dre then was able to use these now famous musicians to help sell his own line of products, thus creating a positive feedback loop. As Paul states, Dr. Dre’s business plan succeeded as Beats by Dre was sold to Apple for more than 3 billion dollars and his talent growth strategy produced some of the most notable rappers of the 2000s namely Eminem, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent.
Paul continued talking about looking to Dr. Dre for inspiration, saying to Techcrunch: “I had this theory where I could replicate what Dr. Dre did in the music industry in the social media business. And I set out to put it to the test…found these kids online…they had 30,000 followers, then I flew them out to LA and taught them how to do things on social media. In 2 weeks [they] grew from 30,000 to 400,000 and today they have 16 million”. Paul raised approximately 1 million dollars from investors such as Ron Burkle and Gary Vaynerchuk and soon made his Dr. Dre dream into a reality. Jake bought a house in Los Angeles and moved his social media peers into it with him. Paul let his friends
and prodigies live in the house for free, in exchange for a cut of their revenue. In the new age of digital media collaborations are one way to captivate an audience and remain successful. Collaborations with multiple Youtubers offers valuable cross promotion. In the case of Team 10, Paul brings a new member into the group and an influx of subscribers come their way. Paul can then double profits off of this collaboration, using his prodigy to sell merchandise and also taking a portion of their revenue. Paul found yet another way to profit off of Team 10 as he opened Team 10 up to outside marketers. The Team 10’s website reads: “Why pay a single celebrity to endorse your product, when you could have a young, vibrant, team-oriented, and driven crew of young innovators disseminating your message to millions upon millions of viewers all over the world...together?”. Paul pushes the idea to companies that Team 10 provides an even greater return on investment than any traditional marketing could hope to bring. Companies in today's market understand the importance of online marketing and Jake has provided a way that companies can get their advertising to the demographics they need. Social media and Youtube created a new kind of trust between creator and consumer than existed previously which makes marketing exceptionally easier. Youtube creates an intimate atmosphere for the viewers. To learn more about Youtuber advertising and the ways Paul manipulates his fans, . What Paul created when he made Team 10 was essentially the most profitable form of a traditional youtube marketing and collaboration.
Problems With Team 10
However idyllic Team 10 seemed as a business plan or even just as a fun adventure, the Team 10 journey has been anything but easy. None of the original members of Team 10 (Chance Sutton, Anthony Trujillo, Justin Roberts, Nick Crompton, Ben Hampton, Kade Speiser and Erika Costell) are a part of the group today except for founder Jake Paul. Although many of the members have stayed quiet about why they left or avoided specific reasons, a few spoke honestly. Including Alissa Violet who said that Paul not only withheld money from her, but also physically abused her and kicked her out of the Team 10 house. Here it is apparent that Paul’s hyper masculine, mook character is not just a character on videos after all, and it violently bleeds into his real life. Does Paul’s mistreatment of his peers and employees show that maybe managing a business of this caliber was too much for 21 year-old Paul?
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