Inside Jordan Matter’s Netflix Deal, and what it signals for YouTubers

**Colin** (0:00)
Over the past year, one of the biggest stories in entertainment has been the battle between Netflix and YouTube. And over the past few months, we've seen Netflix try and make up ground in that battle by signing deals with YouTube creators. These have come in a variety of different forms. We've seen original shows get booked with creators. We've seen licensing deals for podcasts and shows that they have. And now we've seen a different type of deal that was just announced this week with Jordan and Salish Matter. Jordan spent most of his career as a photographer and took to YouTube to make videos about photography and grow his photography business. It now has over 30 million subscribers. They've done 13 billion views. And it really took off when he started making videos with his daughter, Salish. Over the past few years, Jordan and his daughter, Salish, have grown into some of the most popular creators on the platform. And Salish actually is one of the most popular people in the world. If you go to the website, famousbirthdays.com, which is kind of like Wikipedia for Gen Z, Salish Matter is the number one most searched birthday on that website over Taylor Swift. And the Internet really saw how popular Salish was when she launched her skincare brand at the Sephora of the American Dream Mall in New Jersey. Over 80,000 fans showed up and they had to shut down the mall. This version of a Netflix deal that Jordan and Salish got is really different. So I wanted to have Jordan in the chair to explain the deal and talk about this current moment that we're seeing with Netflix pulling YouTube creators onto their platform, trying to become more relevant to a younger audience and trying to operate a bit more like YouTube. So this is my conversation with Jordan Matter about his Netflix deal.
Okay, Jordan, welcome to the show.

**Jordan Matter** (1:53)
Thank you.

**Colin** (1:54)
So, obviously we've talked about this off mic, but I think it's a conversation we should bring to our podcast listeners. You have signed a deal with Netflix.

**Jordan Matter** (2:02)
We've signed a big deal with Netflix. Yeah, super exciting.

**Colin** (2:05)
It's super exciting. First of all, congrats. Thank you. I'm fascinated by this moment. It's something we've talked about quite a bit on the pod, is that this convergence of digital and traditional, it feels like now, how much more can we talk about it as like two separate worlds? It's one.
But tell me about this deal that you saw. Just explain to everyone, what is this?

**Jordan Matter** (2:28)
We have a very unique deal that nobody else has been given up to this point. So you're seeing some development deals come out. Alan Chicken Chow has one. Jimmy, obviously, the Beast Games, Beast Games 2 What that is, is they present a show with a budget, and then the streaming service greenlights it, and then they make it. We have something different, which is a talent deal. So we have agreed over the next three years to create three to four shows for Netflix. We will do that with Netflix, but we have creative control over those shows. It's a huge leap of faith in us and a lot of trust because we did not come to them with a show at all. They came to us with interest in us as talent, and then they want to develop something with us together.

**Colin** (3:12)
So what those shows are, that's up in the air right now.

**Jordan Matter** (3:15)
Yes, we're in the process of developing them now. Lots of meetings, creative, they're amazing. Their creative team is really exciting to work with, and they have their own team that's developing ideas. We are developing ideas, then we come together and talk about them, and we will together come up with the best idea, and we both have to green light it. So they can't say to me, you have to do this, and I can't say to them, you have to do this. Once we agree on a show together, then we go into pre-production.

**Colin** (3:40)
What happens if you don't agree on a show?

**Jordan Matter** (3:43)
We will. We have to.

**Colin** (3:46)
Got it, you have to. Understood. So who came to who in this scenario? Like for us as creators right now, like I think a lot of us have gotten calls from the streamers, specifically Netflix. But they've been, at least for us, they've been very exploratory. Who came to who in this context?

**Jordan Matter** (4:03)
We spent the last year and a half developing an animated show. And we took it out to the market, to Amazon, Disney, and Netflix, among others. And right when we were starting to get those meetings, we launched our skincare, Sincerely Yours, at the American Dream Mall. And 87,000 people showed up to that, which is a large careers event in history. That went super viral. And then all these companies are like, wait a minute, maybe there's more to this than just an animated show. And Netflix and other, I shouldn't say who, but other companies were super, super interested in developing a bigger relationship. And we basically just kind of fell in love with Netflix, and they were very open to allowing us to have a lot of creative control, which we thought was super important.