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Zach Kornfeld and Keith Habersberger of the Try Guys

JD RENES

The Try Guys, one of YouTube’s most established creator groups, have successfully abandoned their reliance on Google’s algorithms and advertiser revenue by launching a standalone streaming service called 2nd Try. And it’s already starting to pay off.

Brand partnerships, sponsored content and advertising have long been key revenue channels for creators, but some are turning away from the unpredictable world of algorithm-driven platforms to subscription services for more stable income.

“Having a business that is reliant on ads is very unstable and very unpredictable,” Try Guys co-founder Zach Kornfeld told CNBC in an interview. “There’s just so much that’s out of your control, and we certainly experienced the worst of that. It’s tenuous at best. Corrosive and explosive at worst. And it also forces you creatively to constantly optimize for things that are not always in your audience’s best interest.”

With a potential TikTok ban threatening to wipe out nearly $15 billion in annual revenue for small and medium businesses, and YouTube’s ad revenue growth slowing, creators are seeking more reliable income sources in an increasingly volatile advertising market.

The Try Guys now have over 8 million subscribers and 2.7 billion views on YouTube. They announced in May the launch of their streaming service, 2nd Try, where most of their new videos are behind a paywall and subscribers can access exclusive content for around $5 a month without ads. In the three months since launching 2nd Try, the company says it is on track to reach profitability.

Other creators are trying to recreate the Netflix subscription model, too. Watcher Entertainment and Dropout are two other popular YouTube channels that launched subscription-based streaming services to avoid the volatility of social media algorithms.

Social media platforms rely on algorithms to decide what content users see, based on their past interactions and preferences. The algorithms analyze user behavior to create personalized content feeds, which often prioritize posts that are likely to generate engagement, like likes or shares. As a result, many creators feel pressured to make content that caters to the algorithm, even if they believe it lowers the quality of their work, just to stay visible.

“We are really happy with how it’s going so far. It’s more than we probably thought we’d have at this point,” said co-founder Keith Habersberger. “We have a long road ahead. The goal isn’t to get to this number. The goal is to keep growing and also to keep learning, and we’re going to be making mistakes.”

Subscription platforms like Patreon allow creators to bypass the algorithm entirely, connecting directly with their most loyal fans who are willing to pay for exclusive content.

“It’s just not a reliable source of income for creative people, and so I think over the years, creators have learned that, and they’re seeking something more stable,” said Patreon founder and CEO Jack Coyne in an interview with CNBC.

Try Guys found early success with BuzzFeed before starting their independent creative venture in 2018. However, they faced a career-defining internet scandal in 2022 when one of their co-founders and main talent was caught having an affair with another employee. It damaged brand relationships and the company hemorrhaged money making new YouTube videos.

“Our company was operating at a loss for essentially two years. We got to a point where it cost more money for us to make the shows our audience loved than we got in from YouTube,” said Kornfeld. 

Revenue from 2nd Try makes up about 20% of the company’s total sales. The Try Guys will continue posting content on YouTube. The platform’s ad payments remain an important part of its business model. However, Kornfeld and Habersberger emphasize that their main focus is growing 2nd Try to be their biggest income stream, alongside merchandise sales and live touring.

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Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

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11 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.

Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images

Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.

Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
  • Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion

Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.

While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.

Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.

For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.

Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.

“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”

Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.

CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.

At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.

On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.

On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.

“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”

WATCH: H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump administration is considering a free tax-filing app

H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump admin considering a free tax-filing app

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is ‘billionaire proof’

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14 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is 'billionaire proof'

Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”

In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.

“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”

Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.

X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.

Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.

“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”

Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”

Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.

“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”

Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.

In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.

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Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

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14 hours ago

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November 21, 2024

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Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares slid 6% Thursday, following news that the Department of Justice is calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser to put an end to its search monopoly.

The proposed break-up would, according to the DOJ in its Wednesday filing, “permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”

This development is the latest in a years-long, bipartisan antitrust case that found in an August ruling that the search giant held an illegal monopoly in both search and text advertising, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

The potential break-up would include preventing Google from entering into exclusionary agreements with competitors like Apple and Samsung, part of a set of remedies that would last 10 years.

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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