Market7

The Things You Can Learn From “The Thing”

Comedian Louis CK has been in the news quite a bit over the past couple of weeks. Not because he’s funny. Because he’s taken something that’s been around for decades – the stand-up comedy special – and turned creation and distribution of it on its head. Essentially, he did everything himself (with help, of course), cutting out the middleman and delivering a product directly to consumers. This successful experiment, which Louis affectionately calls “the thing,” is an example of how internal resources can be tapped and how you can evolve how you deliver a final product to your audience.

First, some background. Unless you go out of your way to avoid laughter, you’ve likely seen at least a stand-up comedy special or two before.  Chances are it was on DVD, Comedy Central or maybe a premium cable channel. Typically, these come about one of two ways. A comedian might take on the cost of production themselves and sell the special to a network, which will then find an audience for it and own all distribution. Or in other cases, a comic might just let the network handle everything and simply show up and tell jokes.

Louis CK did a few specials exactly that way. But never content to take the easy way out (after all, this is a guy who turns in a new one hour act ever year and edits his hit FX show Louis himself on a Macbook), he explored how constant advances in technology could help him do things differently. And so, “the thing” began to take shape. He took some AV classes in school so knew how to edit video. He had the money to invest in a camera crew and recording. He already had a fan base that he could tap. And bandwidth was cheap enough to economically deliver the special directly to each consumer.

The result? In just days after making the special available online, Louis recouped his investment (about $250k). And within a couple weeks, has already grossed more than $1m in sales. This whole thing is unprecedented in comedy. And there are much bigger names in the businesses (e.g. Rock, Seinfeld) that haven’t tried to pull off something like this.

So if you’re a business, what can be learned from this? Plenty.

• If the old way isn’t working or feels stale, blaze a new trail.
• Always be thinking what can you do yourself and what do you need to outsource?
• You might have no idea what hidden talent is lurking on your team. Find out who can help you do something economically and effectively. Especially if it makes the difference between doing something or nothing at all.
• Rethink your distribution model. How are you delivering content to your audience? Is it the best way to get it to them? Is it easy for them to consume?
• Is there currently a middleman that sits between you and your audience? Does there absolutely need to be?
• Keep your content fresh, set a high standard and people will come back for more. Or they’ll even proactively seek it out.

Chris Rock, comedian, comedy, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK, the thing, Video