Colin Furze, Dose of Society & Eline van der Velden at Web Summit 2025

This week’s TellyCast comes from Lisbon and the 2025 Web Summit, featuring three standout conversations from the frontline of social video. Engineering superstar and YouTube icon Colin Furze joins the show fresh from his packed session to discuss two decades of building one of the world’s biggest creator channels, the near-mythical underground tunnel project, his relationship with TV, and how he keeps millions of viewers hooked. Ahmed Fayed from Dose of Society shares the journey behind the fast-growing social video brand, how they built a global audience from London street interviews, and why authentic storytelling now travels everywhere from the Emirates to Africa. Justin also catches up with Eline van der Velden from Particle6 after the global reaction to the launch of her AI actress — covering the backlash, the outcomes, and what comes next for creators building with AI. A Web Summit special packed with insight on the future of content, creators and social video.

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Transcript

Justin Crosby: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Justin Crosby and welcome to this week's TellyCast. This week's show comes from Lisbon in Portugal from the 2025 Web Summit, and my guests are engineering YouTuber with over 13 million subscribers, Colin Furs and dose of societies Ahmed Fae plus a catch up with Tilly Norwood, creator Elene van de Elden from particle six on the backlash and outcomes following the global news story that followed the launch of the AI actress in September.

It's all coming up on this week's 

Ahmed Faid: TellyCast. 

Justin Crosby: So my first guest on this week's web summit special here in Lisbon is a YouTube legend, Colin Furs. Colin, how you doing? Welcome to TellyCast. 

Colin Furze: Welcome. That's all right. That's good. YouTube Legend Day. 

Justin Crosby: Well, it's true, it's true. I mean we've just sat, um, I've just sat through your brilliant panel.

Really enjoyed it discussion on [00:01:00] stage here, and I learned loads of new things. Uh, and we're gonna sort of talk about them again now, but nearly 20 years you've run your U YouTube channel, 13.2 million subscribers. What an achievement. How do you, first of all well, first of all, tell us about how you first started your YouTube channel way back 20 years ago.

Colin Furze: Oh, yeah. I mean, things have changed now a bit, haven't they? So essentially before YouTube, I used to ride BMXs. Um, so, and we used to film that and we used to do a little bit of messing around as well, filming stuff. There was a, like the kind of pre jackass, there used to be a skateboard video called, uh, camp Kill Yourself or something, CKY, where it was just like, it was half skateboarding, half of them whacking each of it with skateboards and stuff and all sorts of crazy stuff.

Well, that kind of, you know, in our era that was kind of like quite, quite topical. So that's where kind of the video skills come from. And I basically had this dv, not DVD cross VHS tape, which got put together, which was called Safety [00:02:00] Starts Here. And I remember like my sister used to pass it around work and stuff, and it was a little bit of me bare mixing, little bit of messing around.

And then basically YouTube became a thing. And then somebody said, oh, there's a website now where you can upload video sort of thing. Why don't you put it on there Now? I couldn't put the whole tape on it. It was only like 10 or 12 minutes long. But of course when YouTube first started, it was like a hundred meg file limit.

So I had to like section out like tiny sections of it, nearly a little bit like social media clips of today, but obviously landscape and upload them. And then they kind of immediately gained some traction. Like they did, you know, did okay. I mean, the first video I ever put out, it's not on there anymore, was there was a Super Soaker attached to my BMX, which was essentially a flame thrower.

For other reasons. I had to take that off slightly later on in the day. But that did really well. And then it kind of, there was all sorts of things that happened at the same time. So it was, YouTube became a thing. Fortunately my dad passed away not long after that, which. The pro side of that was that gave me access to his shed.

'cause I wasn't allowed in his shed when he was [00:03:00] alive. So it was his space. And then I started making stuff and obviously that went on the internet. And then the two things kind of then started to form into what it's become today. And it's big, you know, the engineering channel of, uh, you know, people have watched me basically learn to become an engineer over the past 20 years.

So, so that's how it first started. I used to be a plumber and then I think 2009 was when I basically kind of got plucked away from plumbing, just, uh, temporarily to do a TV show for Sky Gadget geeks. Um, and essentially I never went back to plumbing after that. I just thought right. You know, they've paid me some money because it was like six days a week in a hotel.

When I finished it, I hadn't spent anything they'd paid me. 'cause I was just, everything was sorted. So I thought, right, I've got, nearly got like a year's worth of money here, which I haven't barely touched. Why don't I just use that to kind of fund myself for the next year of just doing YouTube projects.

And it all coincided with when YouTube like started to start paying ad revenue and things like that. And then I managed to just [00:04:00] sustain it. And obviously it's just grown and grown ever since. 

Justin Crosby: And well it's, it is amazing story really. And, you know, you're now one of the biggest individual creators on YouTube from the UK and, uh, and many other many of the territories as well.

Tell us a little bit about the cadence of, of, of content that you produce. 'cause you produce, it still produce it all, all yourself, right? 

Colin Furze: Yeah, yeah. I still do everything myself. Sometimes that's a benefit, sometimes it's a hindrance. Obviously being the filmer, the editor, everything, then. You know, if certain things take a long time, as you very well know, uh, so certain videos, certain projects can take a lot more.

Obviously the current project I'm working on with the underground tunnels and the garage system, that has been, it's been a big job. So for me it's very, been very challenging. 'cause obviously I've had to worry about the house falling in the hole. I've had to worry about the path falling in the hole, everything falling in the hole.

Um, so that has been quite a, I wouldn't say it's been a nightmare, but it has been, it's been quite overwhelming at times, if you know what I mean. So obviously the video, the gaps [00:05:00] between the videos have been a bit larger than, than usual. But normally I used to try and, you know, try and put a month, six weeks maybe in between each project, you know, to try and film something and, uh, and then get it out there.

But some things can happen really fast. I've had some videos which have literally took me a week to make and, and they've been just as successful as ones that have taken months. 

Justin Crosby: Well, I think you, you know, you are just a brilliant example of, you know, the, the, the way that YouTube. Can provide such an amazing platform for somebody who's creating niche content, but super entertaining.

And uh, and you, you just just described it as an engineering channel, but it's actually, you know, an entertainment channel as well, isn't 

Colin Furze: it? Yeah, it's, it is an entertainment channel. 'cause ultimately, if. If what you are watching is not fun or exciting, then it's your audience shrinks again, if you know what I mean.

It's always, ever, ever decreasing, isn't it? You know, with everything you ever do. 

Ahmed Faid: Yeah. 

Colin Furze: Um, you put something out there, there's a certain amount of people that will watch it and then a certain amount of people of that will then watch it all the way [00:06:00] through, and then a certain amount of people that will then click on something and then all that sort of thing, et cetera.

But I always try and edit my videos with, uh, a parent sat there with their child in mind. Sort of thing. 'cause a lot of people have come up to me and say like, you know, we watch your videos with the kids. So I don't put any swearing in them. I make sure if there is any, any jokes or innuendos, they're easily described by the adult in a way that they can get out of it sort of thing.

So, daddy, what did he mean by that? Oh, he's just talking about his dog or something. So of thing. So I always think, you know, as a parent myself, you know, 

Justin Crosby: there's a bit of a wink, there's a bit of a knowing wink. Is there, there, yes. If there's, if it's a bit, a little bit you know, a little bit edgy. 

Colin Furze: Yeah, I think, I think the real calling would be a little bit more of, you know, cross the other way sort of thing.

A bit more edgy. But, you know, I try and tone it down as much as I can. 'cause I know, you know, everybody's watching, not just some people. So so yeah, I mean that's, that's the joy of it is that my audience is very broad, is, although the YouTube analytics say it's 96% male, when I've done events and, and shows and stuff and people come up to me, there is [00:07:00] a, a massive range of, you know, genders, age groups, different types of people.

You name it. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes very hard to say what a Colin Fur's YouTube viewer is and looks like sort of things. They seem to come from everywhere, 

Justin Crosby: but, um, but with it being a global channel, obviously, uh, is, is the states the biggest your, your biggest audience in terms of, uh, in terms of location?

Colin Furze: I think for a lot of people, America is always the number one. I think that's just because YouTube is an American site. It's, it's kind of born there. It's like, it just seems to be most people you talk to, it's America, then your country of origin, and then, then the rest of the world is divided up into, you know, whatever proportions it is.

But I do find that with mine, it depends on the project. Like when I do bicycle stuff, India, Vietnam, places like that tends to. Rise up the, uh, up the order, because obviously they're really, you know, they're obviously like their bicycles, Netherlands as well. You know, you can't get to Netherlands about seeing bikes everywhere.

So [00:08:00] different projects obviously appeal to different, different sorts of people in different countries. So that, that graph is an ever changing lottery sometimes, depending on what you're doing. 

Justin Crosby: That's interesting. So, um, what was the first video then, then when you started producing regular videos?

Which was the first one that made you think, actually this is, this is a, this is gonna be a really. Mm. Going concern, you know, I can make a career outta this and don't, you know, I don't need to rely on anything else. What, what was the first video and, and, and why did it work so well? 

Colin Furze: There's kind of two answers to that.

So obviously I started uploading stuff from that original VHS tape. I could see that certain things were doing well, sort of people like the sort of funny, cranky, weirdy looking things that we were doing. And I had this crazy idea we were coming back from somewhere, we were all hungry and we passed this guy with like a, a burger van or something on the back.

It was like a towed thing that you pull up. And I remember just saying to [00:09:00] me, mate, if he was in the back of that cooking, we could reach across and I'd have one of them now. I'd have, do you know what I mean? We're all hungry, we'd do that. And I was like, we should do that. So we got an old caravan, cut a hole out of it, tried to serve burgers and beans to my mates while we were driving.

So all on private roads, of course. And, and, and it was, I remember seeing that and there was a particular point at the end of it where I for some reason had this giant suit on, which I had, 'cause I was the mascot for the, uh, for the local football team. And Daniel Lambert, the guy from Stanford, this really large guy.

So I had this suit, which made me really large for some reason. I, I'd wear that to make me look different. And I said to him, mate said, right, let's get loads of old plates. We'll stick, stack the caravan full of this old crockery. Go along, ram your brakes on as if someone's pulled out in front of us and then all the plates will go flying.

Hilarious. He drives off, done these and only, only about 30 mile an hour whacked his brakes on plates went flying. I literally like rolled over as if I wasn't a person. I just retained my shape. Went over and actually went through the [00:10:00] end of the caravan. 'cause I mean, this caravan was rubbish as you can imagine.

We've been given, it smashed out the end of it. All the plates shot out the hole as well, all over the road. I was just an absolute hysteric. And I remember looking at that clip and thinking like, this is, this is actually really. Really funny, really good stuff sort of thing. And I, I, I kind of looked at it slightly different, 'cause obviously the internet one is infancy.

And I was like, that's gonna end up on telly. That is either in like a, you've been frame sort of thing or you know, little clip show sort of thing. And from that point I started to think like, right, rather than making these kind of individual hit things, is there anything we can do where we show everything?

And then the first project for that was the wall of death and we built it. We showed me testing it and we showed me writing it. It was three separate videos and the final one, YouTube themselves actually picked out to put on their homepage. 'cause back in the day, I actually quite liked the old YouTube homepage.

We all saw the same homepage and they would pick out certain videos, they would put it at the top and it would stay there for like half the day. [00:11:00] And then another one would replace it and then they would sort of like cycle down like a conveyor belt and you'd end up watching stuff that you wouldn't search for.

You know, I know about Sequoia trees I know understood what Asperger's disease or syndrome, whatever it is sort of thing. And it's like, well I would never have searched for that. And I just thought it was really good. Whereas now if you watch a video about golf, you are constantly shown videos about golf.

It's 

Justin Crosby: all about the algorithm, 

Colin Furze: right? And you end up in an echo chamber. Back in the day, it was completely the opposite to that. So it was quite good. So yeah, they were kind of like, the first two things was the, uh, getting fired out of a caravan, which is hilarious. And then obviously building this giant wall of death out of pallets and then riding it.

And then it kind of went on from there where you'd sort of show a little bit more of what you do. And obviously eventually it got to the point where like people were like, no, we wanna see, we wanna see everything. We wanna see you build this from the ground up. So 

Justin Crosby: yeah. I'm gonna ask you at the end of this, like your top three favorite videos that you've ever produced on the channel, right?

So, uh, I won't, I won't ask you that right now. I'm [00:12:00] gonna tell you my favorite, which is the farting at France. 

Colin Furze: Yeah. See, I forget about that sometimes. That was actually a pilot for a channel four series. They wanted to do this series where basically content or influences, whatever we get called nowadays, asked their audience for certain things or a certain direction to try and try and take it in.

And, and we were supposed to kind of like source parts and materials and stuff, and. From, you know, from your viewers, it kind of worked. It was a little bit tricky 'cause. The internet's a very fast moving thing, whereas obviously, 'cause it was a pilot, everyone was trying to find their feet, so it kind of, the internet was way quicker than what, what the production side of things were.

So it kind of nearly lost its, do you know what I mean? I was like, look, we need to get on with this now. I'm like, you know, I'm at this stage. And they were like, ah. But um, but the general idea of it farting at the French, I mean, you can't, you can't not like that can you? 

Justin Crosby: I mean, if any, if anybody hasn't seen it, just go into Colin's uh, uh, YouTube channel and it's basically a large pair of plastic buttocks that [00:13:00] are Oh, steel, 

Colin Furze: steel butt.

Oh, steel buttocks. 

Justin Crosby: Sorry, 

Colin Furze: I can't make anything in plastic. Can't weld it, I'd say. 

Justin Crosby: And some sort of jet engine that made or what, what was, what was the, or what was the device? 

Colin Furze: Yeah, it was a giant pulse jet engine 'cause they're basically ferociously loud. I'd made one and put it on a bike that was probably by my most watched video prior to this and they are ear splittingly loud.

And so I made this really big one and it was like more basey. Um, whether they did hear it in France, I don't know. It was quite a windy day, but even all the French people that watched it, they loved it. Like there's so many comments, like, I'm French and I, I stand right behind this. They kind of wanted the French to do something back.

Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So like, you know, like, um, raspberry, I dunno what, what the French version of farting at us would be, you know? But, uh, but yeah, that was, that was a fun project. I remember driving it down to like Dover, we had this massive butt on the back of the back of the van with this big pulse engine.

Brilliant. So, 

Justin Crosby: Well you mentioned channel four and you mentioned [00:14:00] Sky earlier on. So tell us about, you know, your relationship with tv because you know. Lots of broadcasters will kill for your audience, you know, your size for your audience, and also how passionate they are and, and, and this community that you've built up around your content.

So yeah, what's, what's your relationship with traditional tv? Because you must get approached all the time. You know what, what, how do you view TV now? 

Colin Furze: Well, I suppose if you look at it from going back, obviously I did Gadget Geeks, which was the Sky One show. I learned a lot on that because. Before that I didn't use to talk as much on my YouTube channel as what I did after that because obviously it was a lot more presenting.

I kind of learned the, a bit more of how to film stuff properly, the tights wise, gvs talking, nodding shots, all that sort of, you know, stuff sort of thing. So that was kind of like a bit of an apprenticeship for me and like how you, how you put a video together and how you put a story together. So that was fantastic.

Obviously post that, my YouTube channel takeoff I [00:15:00] did, you know, I've been on clip shows, I've been interviewed, I've done various other little things. But I think the thing I always struggled with is obviously a bit like when we did the far at, at the French thing. When there's a, a production company involved.

I'm very nimble. I'm one person. I could change direction and do what I like at the, at the turn of a hat. And also I, I think, don't have to worry about health and safety 'cause I'm just like, do I want to do that? Yeah, no, let's, let's go and do it. Obviously we'd tell, you know, we'd have, we'd have constant things.

Oh yeah, yeah, we really love this. Let's try and do this. And then obviously they'd put it through the health and safety filter and what you got out the other side was not quite a Colin first thing. It's like, yeah, but I wouldn't do it like that now. Do you know what I mean? I'm like, covered in safety gear.

It just doesn't look right. 

Justin Crosby: Well, it's the authenticity as well, isn't it? 

Colin Furze: Yeah. But I get, I get the constraints they're working in against the ones that I wasn't working in. So I, you know, I understood it. It wasn't something, you know, you couldn't get angry about it. It's just, you know, we were different working in parameters, but I think there's a part to play.

You know, tele tele still exists. [00:16:00] It's. I, it's gonna be weird how it changes in the future. 'cause I've got kids and they, if they put the TV on, they don't consider terrestrial change. It's not even an option to them. Do you know what I mean? They see it probably as the news and maybe the thing in the morning, but even then, they don't really take any notice of that.

So it'd be interesting to see as they get older, whether they start to, oh, you know, I'll stick this on and look for that. But the idea of waiting for something to come on at eight o'clock is just, I just don't get it. Yeah. So, but then maybe it will change, you know, maybe it will become like a, a combination of the internet and tele and whatnot, but who knows?

Justin Crosby: Who knows? And, and now there's lots of different platforms out there. Obviously your, you know, you've, correct me if I'm wrong, but you've pretty much focused, almost solely on, on YouTube. 

Colin Furze: YouTube's my biggest one. I, I do do TikTok. I've got Instagram page, I've got Facebook, but obviously YouTube is my. Is is the biggest platform.

So therefore it's the one that I'd favor the most in terms of the ad revenue and everything. Their model has been the better one, [00:17:00] uh, for a long time. Obviously Facebook, you know, they, they started doing monetization and stuff a while about, but it's, it's a bit more complicated. Facebook is, I mean, I, I've got somebody that sort of slightly runs my Facebook page 'cause I don't really understand it.

Like Facebook just has pages and pages of stuff. There's the business manager, there's Messenger. It's just broken up into an absolute mess as far as I can see. But yes, but I do do the others. And to be fair, they're all slightly different audiences. Like obviously TikTok is very short attention span.

Very quick things, although they are trying to get longer stuff on it now. 'cause they've kind of, you know, they're all realizing where other people are successful. 'cause they all look at each other, don't they think? Right. They do. How can we get people to stay on our app longer? Oh, well maybe we need to do this.

So they're all sort of trying to rob each other. Obviously YouTube shorts is basically only there because tiktoks a success. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Colin Furze: So, so there's all that sort of thing. So, you know, when you think of a project, you don't just think of the long form [00:18:00] video you think of right. What individual bits will make good social media clips and good shorts or reels or whatnot.

So you kind of have to think about it from like three or four different angles. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well it's interesting, I think, you know, the, the, the size are that tiktoks gonna be starting moving to TV screens fairly soon as well and you would've thought, you know, lots of the other uh, platforms will as well. I mean in terms of.

People that are watching your YouTube content on their TV screens. I mean, has that, have you seen that increasing 

Colin Furze: recently? Oh yeah. That is now my, it's the most watched platform. Like if I look at my analytics, I think it's about 50, 60%, maybe be 70 actually, is what on smart tv. Smart TVs have definitely changed how people watch stuff because the, the u YouTube and stuff is no longer something that you'd watch on a phone, a tablet, or your laptop or PC sort of thing.

Now it's in the lounge. Like that's made a massive difference. 'cause like, I mean like even YouTube have said like, you know, make sure everything you filmed in 4K make sure it's got good sound and [00:19:00] stuff like that. Because when you watch stuff in the lounge, it's if you, if you filmed it on something like not necessarily a phone, 'cause obviously phones have got a lot better, but if it was lower quality, when you watch it on a telly, you can tell can't you, you're looking at it, you're like, oh.

And especially now as TVs have got, you know, massive, most people have like 40 odd inch tellies, don't they? So if you filmed it on like an old camera from like seven or eight years ago, people are gonna look at it and go, this looks awful. Um, so yeah. So you, you know, you've gotta pay attention to that. But also, like, YouTube are like pushing for longer videos now.

Like when I first started, like those first videos, the ideal length was like two to four minutes at best. Whereas now, if you upload something for half an hour. They're happy with that. 'cause it's like an episode of something and that is why it is starting to kind of replace, I suppose, normal content because you'd go on, you'd sit there in the lounge and watch something for half an hour.

So, 

Justin Crosby: yeah. So can we be interested to touch very briefly on business and the business aspect of it? Uh, obviously [00:20:00] ad sense and, and, and, uh, revenue is a major part of, of that for you with that many followers and and subscribers should I say. But you also do a number of brand deals and you've also, so you've got memberships as well on your, on your YouTube.

Can you sort of break it down in terms of rough kind of percentage in terms of, you know, where, what, what your income streams are and which are the biggest ones? 

Colin Furze: So the ad revenue is paid on watch time. So again, if you've got a longer video and people do watch it all the way through, you are gonna get more money for that than what you are for like a short one.

That then depends on how interesting your video is. 'cause you can have a video that's got 5 million views, but if people are only watching like the first couple of minutes, then that's not gonna be the same as 5 million views where they watch the whole thing all the way through. There'll be a massive difference in that.

So that is, it's a decent chunk of it. Because you know, my videos, they are mostly now between 20, like, you know, 15, 15 to 30 minutes long, which is, you know, reasonably decent. [00:21:00] Um, and then you get your sponsorships. I'm lucky, I've got a lot of repeat sponsors. Um, I always try and make my sponsorship integrations just as fun as the video.

Because obviously when they first started becoming a thing where, I remember the first time I watched a video and then somebody goes, oh, and now from our sponsor, and they started talking about something else for a minute. I was like, the hell's this? Do you know what I mean? Like, this is awful. Like how could you, oh, don't like where this is going?

Well, 

Justin Crosby: it's, it's an interruption. That's where they call that interruption marketing rather than, obviously what you are doing is, is integrating, you know, the, the, the sponsors and 

Colin Furze: I, and I suppose as well though, if you think back when it first started, when the internet was just on your phones and on your screen, it nearly felt like you were doing something slightly different to telly.

It felt like a different platform. It was a bit more underground. So obviously having something come in in the middle of the video felt more like a commercial like you'd see on it. V So I think we looked at, it was like, no, you can't do that on the internet. We're trying to get away from that. So I think people were just like, Ugh.

But then obviously. As more people did it, as everything, [00:22:00] it becomes more socially acceptable. Oh yeah. I've seen a few other people do, so I'll just, I'll just skip it or whatever. And that's the thing with e obviously you can just forward the whole thing and then you're back to the video again. So I think ultimately people realized that's not really, doesn't really matter that much does it?

Just forward it. And uh, so anyway, I decided at some point I thought everyone's doing it. I may as well give it a go. Do you know what I mean? It's like you're technically leaving money on the table, aren't you? And I thought all how can I do this in a way that people aren't gonna be like, oh God, this is I advert.

So I try and make, I try and do something which might not be related to the brand at all. That's just interesting. So people think, oh wait a minute, don't, don't quite forward that. What's that? He's putting on his feet. Do you know what I mean? What's that he's doing? He's getting into, you know, getting in a bath of beans or something.

Do you, anything like that. That just made it slightly more interesting. So people stayed and watched it and it's obviously worked. 'cause like I said, I've got repeat sponsors. Surf Shark of, you know, they wanted to sponsor way more videos than I wanted to give them. Um, Insta 360. I've always come back for more.

We've done [00:23:00] various things like that. This, uh, mattress top or I've took it to like exotic locations, you know what I mean? To try and demo it and use it in a way that's just a bit more interesting. So yeah, it's, it must be working. But yeah, so you've got your ad revenue, you've got your sponsorships. They used to be things like clip shows and TV licenses and stuff, but that tends, that tends, that has reduced quite a little bit now.

But then you've got your, you've got your memberships, which is a bit like a Patreon, do you know what I mean? Where some people, if they wanna pay to see like bespoke content. What I tend to do with my channel members is I let them name stuff, because if I come up with something like, we did the, the, the really tall bike, which they named as the high great.

Yeah. And then I did my pizza bike where they, we made the pizzas on the motorbike and they called that the Pizza de Moto. There was a couple of other things, subhead, 'cause they've caught with so many different things. So the delivery or something. The delivery. So there was all sorts of brilliant ones.

I'm like, I dunno how to pick one of these. So I always think like, if you've got a problem, ask the internet. Do you know what I mean? Because it's like crowd crowdsourcing all the minds. 

Justin Crosby: And I mean. You've [00:24:00] obviously got a brilliant mind for knowing what your audience loves and enjoys, but do you ever, I mean you, you, you talked a little bit in the session earlier on about your community and how nice they all are, you know, rather than it being some other channels, there's, it's a, you know, there's a, a load of trolls and people just taking the opportunity just to have a go at each other.

Yeah. But, um, how, you know, in terms of listening to your audience, do you, have you ever generated any ideas for, for your channel from conversations that are happening? Oh, oh, yeah. 

Colin Furze: You, you'll see comments every now and again on something like you might be trying to build something and then somebody, I remember one of the comments that stands out above is, I was trying to make a funny shape thing, I don't know what it was, and somebody said, oh, why don't you try hydroforming it?

You only need a garden pressure washer. And I was like. What's this? Never heard of that. I've got a garden pressure washer. Do you know what I mean? Let's look into this. And I looked into it and, and essentially if you weld two flat pieces of metal together, like around the seams, and then put your [00:25:00] garden pressure washer in it, your garden pressure washer kicks out like 120 bar of like standing pressure, which is massive.

And you can inflate metal like a balloon basically. And it would change shape. And it just blew me away. And I was like, whoa, that's amazing. Literally just did a whole video and just messing around trying to do funny shapes. And that was all generated from a comment. And you know, and people will get involved.

You know, you'll put something out there and you might get somebody, you know, I used to work for a company and we used to try and do things like this or you know, or we used to do it the opposite way round. Try making this before that and then put them together and you'll find that, you know. You, it's a better result or something.

So there is all sorts of little nuggets of things, and then you'll get somebody that will just say something, oh, I thought this was gonna be this. And then you are like, actually that's, that's quite a good idea. Or if we just change it slightly so it's nearly another idea. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, the audience, like I said, asking the engineer, pulling all those minds together is a great way of coming up with stuff.

Justin Crosby: So let's talk about your, your favorite [00:26:00] three videos ever. I mean, how I think you've created about 450 videos or something. I think I was, do you 

Colin Furze: know what? I don't know. 

Justin Crosby: It's about that. Yeah, I was having a look. Luck. 

Colin Furze: I know that number, shouldn't I? You sort of don't care about it really. I'm just too focused on the next one to worry about.

What the last 399%. 

Justin Crosby: So so, uh, yeah, so tell us, tell us your top thing. I mean, you've, they don't obviously necessarily need to be your most, uh, successful, right? The hover bite was, you know, a really big one and, and lots of others. So what, what, what's your top three? 

Colin Furze: So, I think there's various different ways I like to look at this.

The Wall of Death in a way was the, it was the first viral one I had, and it was the first thing that I made specifically for YouTube. So I always feel of it. It's a bit like my ground zero. Like that's, that's kind of when it started. That's when my YouTube mind started. Also fantastic project building a wall of death out of a load of scrap pallets and riding it on a moped.

Do you know? I mean, it's where the, where the look comes, come from as well. 'cause I didn't have a helmet on and all the comments were, he doesn't need a helmet on. He's got a [00:27:00] safety tie on. So that's where that was born. So that, you know, so there's quite a lot of meaning to that video. And then I suppose after that, I did, I, I often say this is my favorite video in, in a couple of ways.

It was my magnet shoes. Now this was done for a trio of videos I did, which was supposed to be, it was X-Men powers. Basically X-Men Days of Future Pass was coming out. Big X-Men fan, I thought, right. I'll do some videos on the run up to that, which like, kind of gives me X-Men powers and a lot of people, because this is why this is such an important set of videos is a lot of people thought they were sponsored by Fox and this was before.

Like companies sponsoring people to make something on the internet was even a thing. I don't think, I can't think of anyone that did anything before this up until this point. And then after that I had a lot of people come in to me, oh, you know that stuff you did for Fox? Yeah, well we've got this. Can you make this?

And course, you know, didn't wanna tell 'em, huh? Get paid from Fox for that, by the way. That was just me. [00:28:00] And then that, and so that set off a load of things like that. But also the thing I like about the Magnet shoes was basically I wanted to be magne. So, and I thought, well, I can't move stuff, you know, kinetically, but I could stick to it.

And I wanted to, I wanted to make these shoes where I could hang upside down. And this was at the time where there was literally very little budget for stuff. This was right back in the early days where I didn't used to wanna spend anything on the actual. Things, magnets that would hold my weight. Were like, I think they were like 120 quid each, and I was gonna need like four of them at least.

And I'm like, I'm not spending, I mean 480 quid on magnets for something that won't work. So of course, you know, you go to the internet, how can you make your own magnets? 'cause I knew like you coils a wire and a nail or whatever. It's pretty much a magnet. And then I saw this video of somebody pulling a microwave to bit, so you get the transformer out of it, take the coils out, you can make quite a strong magnet from that.

And literally that with two 12 volt car batteries through was way stronger than it needed to be. So I just put 'em on the bottom of these metal plates, made these shoots. I hung [00:29:00] off the ceiling. Then I actually walked across this metal track in my ceiling of the shed and I'm like, you can't, like, that's YouTube.

Brilliance to me. So cheap people could go and recreate it themselves with very little effort. And then the end result is something which not many people have ever done before. I sort of did a bit of a quick search, like, you know, magnetic shoes exist. 'cause before any video you kind of have a little bit of a look to see what's out there.

And there was virtually nothing. There was a couple of little like websites that hinted to the fact that NASA had dabbled with it to keep people on the International Space Station from flying around all over the place. But then I thought, that's surely not a good idea to have magnets there, a load of electrical equipment.

So maybe that got scrapped quite early. So yeah, so there's that one absolutely fantastic. And then, and then I suppose after that it's, it's probably like the tunnel stuff. The underground tunnel that I've made is, it's not in the bunker. They kind of knit them all into one big thing really. It's as an idea, they're [00:30:00] quite simple.

It's just dig a hole, put a thing in it, but it just seems to have. Grasp the audience like no other project. 

Justin Crosby: Like, well, well, for people who haven't seen this, you've excavated how, I mean, how many tons of Well, there's, 

Colin Furze: there's kind of three stages to it. 'cause 20 because the bunker at the bottom of the garden, we basically dug a massive hole at the bottom of the garden, built a steel box, covered it in concrete, put a garden shed on the top of the entrance underground bunker.

So that was in 2015. And I remember Tom, the guy that dug it out for me, he always said, I think we should dig the whole garden up, sort of thing. And I always said like, no Tom, let's just do it. Let's just do this bit, get this bit done first. But then after we finished it, I did always think it's annoying that you have to walk down to the bottom of the garden shed to go in it.

It would be great one day to connect it to the house. So about five or six years later, I thought, let's kind of, let's expect, you know, let's dabble with this idea. So I started digging down basically from inside my [00:31:00] workshop. The neighbors went on holiday and I thought, we'll just cut the floor out. I've made a hat, I'll make a, a trap door.

And then at any given time you could peel the carpet back, do some digging, and then put it back again. And, and I was like, even if it never goes, 

Justin Crosby: it sounds like a great escape. It's 

Colin Furze: exactly the great escape, which is why everybody loves it because it's like, it's so many projects in one. And I remember the first night, like after we'd put the hole in the trap door, I thought, oh, I'm gonna come this digging tonight.

And I remember like digging in this little four foot square thing thinking Christ's gonna okay. Ages it. It's 'cause you know, I was in there for about an hour or so, whatever, filled up me 14 or 15 tubs, which I had, which I could fit in the van. And it looked like, you know, I'd only done anything and I was just, oh, this is gonna take ages.

But then literally like two months later or whatever it was, you'd lift the trap door up and all of a sudden there's quite a big hole. And it's like, oh, we're getting somewhere now. 'cause you know, after you, when you close it, then stop looking at it and you come back like the day after or the night after or whatever and lift it up.

It's like, woohoo. Yeah, it's getting, [00:32:00] getting better. This is 

Justin Crosby: progress. 

Colin Furze: So anyway, we started digging down, digging down, and then it got trickier once we started hitting the rock, because obviously if you needed jack hammers and stuff like that, you have to wait for people to go out. I, I did make some like hydraulic stuff, which is relatively silent, which could break it up.

But on the digging down, that was quite tricky to get it wedged in and get it working. So we did have to jack hammer, like definitely the bottom meter and a half was smash it up and then take it out as as lumps of rock. Then we had COVID that sort of put a bit of a pause on it 'cause nobody went anywhere.

And then obviously once we started getting out the end of that, I managed to break up. I think I was about a foot away from where I needed to be when COVID hit. It just sat there dormant for about 14 months and then anyway, I noticed that the, uh, neighbors had went out all, all simultaneously. So I ran down there with a jackhammer, smashed up this last last bit.

And then after that, for the sideways stuff, we could use the hydraulic pin, which would just push the rock outta the way, break it up, and then you could work on it 24 7 then. 'cause that didn't make any noise and it was just this thing we were doing. So it was over like [00:33:00] a, probably like a two and a half, three year period nearly till the first set of videos come out.

And we got to a certain stage and it just, the internet just went nuts for it. It was just like, this is epic, and it didn't go anywhere then. It was just from a workshop and along about four meters, which is, you know, it's hardly anything really when you look back at it now and. It's just every video after that, if it wasn't a tunnel video, they're like, what's happening with the tunnel?

Like all the comments, nevermind this what's happening with the tunnel. 

Justin Crosby: So everyone's on the project with you almost, right? 

Colin Furze: Totally. They're totally, and they're so engrossed with it. It's like, you know, when you did upload a tunnel video, it's like, yes, been waiting months for this. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get home and put it on and put it on admit tea.

And they would sit down and watch it. It's like an event for them, you know, to come and watch this next little update. And I got 10 videos out of it eventually, which I was shocked at. 'cause I didn't think I'd get that much content out of it. 'cause it's quite cut and paste. If, I mean, after a while you dig a bit, you move a bit.

So I, each video, I'm trying to think like, what's new that's happening in this video. You know, we'd be trying to [00:34:00] drill holes up to the surface to pull the concrete. We made a mining cart, do you know what I mean? To move the stuff around. There was just very, you know, various different things I was trying to think of, of like, you know, like what makes this video different to the last one.

So anyway, it got to 10 and then, so that was that. And then of course the staging working at the moment is. I, we basically went from the workshop to the house first, and then I kind of thought while we was at it, let's send a, uh, like a corridor down to the front garden, because at some point I would like the car to be able to come up out the drive.

So the dream when it's all finished is you pull up to the house, you'll go onto the platform, it'll lower down sort of thing. Then you can get out your car, be able to get to the house, the bunker and the workshop and everything, all underground, all you know, accessible when it's completely finished. 

Justin Crosby: Well, this is like, I mean, James Bond as well.

So it's James 

Colin Furze: Bond. James 

Justin Crosby: Bond. Great escape. 

Colin Furze: It's great escape. You know what I mean? It's, you know, there's even, there's, um, there's a cartoon called the Avatar, uh, avatar, last Airbender. [00:35:00] There's a song in that it says Fruit Secret Tunnel. I, the amount of comments about, all I can hear is the people singing secret tunnel.

So it obviously strikes a chord with nearly every generation of my watcher. So it's like completely, you strike a call with all these different people. So yeah. So that is probably one of the favorite ones. 'cause it's just engrossed people like no other project has. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, uh, Colin, Colin, you've been, you know, incredibly generous with your time.

Thank you. And you've, you've come across to Lisbon and, uh, you know, you've got projects at home, you've got obviously content to make and everything. I mean, what's, what's an average week look like to you then in terms of, you know, work, you know, how, how, how, how can you afford to come and, and spend, you know, 24, 48 hours in, in Lisbon?

Colin Furze: Well, it is, it is tricky coming to these things because I, it is just me, like nothing's happening at the moment in Stanford. You know, the, the current projects in the shed, I mean, I've got a few things. I, I try and make sure if I'm gonna do an event like this. I'll get to a certain stage and then I'll either try and order components you, so I'm [00:36:00] waiting for stuff, so I'll make sure everything, you know, come Thursday or Wednesday or whatever, it's either all sat there on the doorstep waiting, waiting to be taken in or whatever.

The neighbors will probably get loads of it. 

Justin Crosby: Well, that, well I was gonna, that's, that's the last question I'm gonna ask you. Is neighbors, the neighbor, 

Colin Furze: everyone wants to know about the neighbors, don't they? Um, I get on well with my neighbors. I've always tried to be Yeah, I, I warned them of stuff, didn't worry 'em about a secret tunnel, but they don't need to know about that till I'm, till I'm well into it.

'cause there's, I know what's gonna worry 'em if, you know what I mean. But equally, I think they've, they've come to trust me quite a bit now. 

Justin Crosby: But What about subsidence, Colin? 

Colin Furze: Yeah, well I'm luckily enough, it's far enough away from their houses to worry about it. And, uh, and it is, we are on rock, so it's pretty solid ground.

Yeah. But I mean, when I first built the shed. I think they were a bit nervous about the shed I made outside the back door. I think they were imagining some shanty town of a, of a, of a contraption of a, you know, a building. And then when it was made, I think actually I thought that's quite nice actually.

So, you know, because like the [00:37:00] other side of it, which was supposed to have the fence come along the front of it, they never ever bothered putting the fence up in the end. 'cause I think the, the back of it looked, you know, it was all feather edge boil, painted. It looked nice and, and obviously as time's gone on, if I've ever done anything which has, you know, been a bit too much or, you know, making a bit too much noise or something is a bit too big, I've always like, we won't do that.

That was a bit too much. Sorry. I'll make sure that if we do do anything like that again, it's done either somewhere else or we just, you know, make sure if I'm ever doing any grinding or anything, the shed doors are always shut. 

Ahmed Faid: Yeah. 

Colin Furze: Sort of thing. And I think they've, they've seen that over the years, you know, worked out.

I'm not actively trying to annoy them. 

Ahmed Faid: Yeah. 

Colin Furze: And I mean like when we did the garage digging the go, obviously we needed Tom on the front with a massive digger. I just said like, you know, when are you next out all day? Sort of thing. I'll, I'll, we'll do it that day. So then you come home and it's all done. So, and you know, and obviously when you do things like that, people appreciate that, don't they?

So, yeah, 

Justin Crosby: of course they do. Thank you so much, Colin. It's been brilliant. I've, I've wanted you on TellyCast for a long, long time. So I'm really delighted that we, uh, we got to meet and you could spend [00:38:00] some time with us. Um, and the best of luck. Best of luck with the next, uh, next project and the next, uh, you know, iteration of the tunnel and the, and, and the underground.

Um, 

there's 

Colin Furze: still more underground stuff to do. I've got in the new year, I've got, I built a car lift, the, basically the thing that lifts the car up and down to the surface, and I want it to turn it around as well inside. So you drive in forwards, drive out forwards. And then once that's all done, then there's just the last segment where it goes from the workshop down to the bunker, right?

So, and then it's underground, it's done. Then that's it. I don't wanna see another piece of limestone after that. 

Justin Crosby: Colleen, thanks so much and, uh, enjoy the rest of, uh, web summit and, uh, thanks again. 

Colin Furze: Brilliant. Just Justin. 

Justin Crosby: So my next guest on this week's web summit special is Ahed Faed from of Society. And I've want another guest that I've wanted to have on the show can't meet in London, but meet in Lisbon, right?

Ahmed Faid: That's it. Why not Lisbon be beautiful Lisson. 

Justin Crosby: It, it is, it is beautiful as well. Ah, mate, great to see you. And [00:39:00] amazing to see the success of Doses Society. So, um, for those who, who aren't aware of Doses Society, tell us, talk us through it and, uh, and how you got started and, and what, what is the problems and the challenges that Dozer Society's setting out to, to, to, uh, you know, to solve essentially?

Ahmed Faid: Definitely. So far it's been a, again, an amazing journey. Something that kind of started out in the streets of London in 2017, but again, really wanted to start in 2011, but didn't have the courage, I think to really start something as a 16-year-old back then. And back then it really just spurred off just problems within London.

That, London, especially in 2011, was going through an interesting time. We had the London riots, um. For, for the, again, the university fees increased from 3000 pounds to 9,000 pounds. So there's many things that's bubbling within the city, especially for young teenage na teenagers at the time. And there wasn't really an outlet or platform for people to really voice their issues.

So back then I wish I started but didn't. But yeah, thankfully, you know, a few years later I kind of got the courage to, to kind of just start something where we hit the streets of London King's Cross to be [00:40:00] precise and just start speaking to our local community about just things in the world that was happening.

Um, and for the first time I really understood the power of, of content. And remember back then see Instagram, you can't do videos. We, TikTok didn't exist. So, um, YouTube and, and Facebook was kind of our kind of, I guess our primary method of just kind of showcasing to the world just what we kind of wanted to kind of create.

And yeah, fortunately, yeah, couple years later we got our first bit of like investment or pre-seed for, from Snapchat. Took us full time and really allowed us to kind of really build a team, um, around what we're doing. And now we're at stage we have and think about. Six to 7 million followers across our social media channels.

And pretty much kind of, you know, why it exists, why you kind of started back then is just to kind of showcase human stories. So, um, so yeah, I think we've done a pretty good job so far. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, you certainly have. Um, so what would you say is your primary platform now? Or you completely platform agnostic, you produce for everyone?

Ahmed Faid: Yeah, I think we, yeah, we, we produce for everyone. So tiktoks one of our biggest Instagram, but it's like, again, it's platforms [00:41:00] going kind of waves and stages for example. But yeah, we don't try to kind of focus too much in terms of like algorithms of rock. I think you can get into a little world wre if you really start to allow that to kind of really impact you.

So our main ethos, especially at the company, is just tell great stories. I think if we're, if we're at a point we're able to tell stories very, very well, I think regardless of what platform comes, goes, like we'll be able, we will have hopefully a business for, for a lifetime. So I think the power for us is just being able to kind of just tell amazing stories and hopefully whatever.

Maybe it's a new TikTok or a new newsletter platform, wherever it's, we're able to be able to, you know, harness that skill. Hopefully we'll be able to live throughout generations to come. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well you've done a great job and and just talk, talk us through that content. So it's, it's basically streets interviews essentially.

Do you have different formats? Do you, do, do you have, you know, how, how, how is it, how is content organized across platforms? 

Ahmed Faid: Sure. So we have different, we actually have different formats within those society, ecosystem, our bread and butter. And what we, what we're known for is our, is our street interviews.

Um, again, simply hit the streets of different parts of the world and, you know, again, tell [00:42:00] stories of interesting people everyday people, sometimes celebrities. Um, so yeah, that's the kind of the bread and bottom, what we're known for. Um, the other side of the business is we have, um, different other kind of channels across Snapchat, um, more targeted towards Gen Z, that Gen Z, um, era.

So we have a. I think the biggest history show on Snap, um, called History 1 0 1. So really, really deep dive into just history, making it fun interesting. And now we're a place where, where we've launched Doses site, we're able to kind of launch different things around the world. So we have Dose of Emirates now, um, looking to launch different doses of different localized.

Justin Crosby: Yeah, I've, I've seen you on LinkedIn a lot in various places around the Middle East and stuff, so Yeah. Tell, tell us about that, how you're growing different I guess hubs. Uh, 

Ahmed Faid: yeah, no, I think it's a point. I think where we're able to build something global is amazing, but I feel like to really have just wider impact, just how we're able to kind of create localized stories in different parts.

Like what does this dose of society look like in PS of Africa, for example, or PS of Asia. 'cause again, not everyone, again, it's a language barrier, right? I know I met on [00:43:00] Instagram are doing a great job when it comes to air translation, but I think it always comes. To down that authentic level of stories when someone breaks down a story within their kind of culture, within their kind of language, you know?

So how are we able to kind of now take what we've done, um, as a blueprint and kind of go into different parts of the world and, and create little ps of doses? 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. So it's, it's taken that authentic ethos, if you like, and then applying it to different key different markets. 

Ahmed Faid: Correct. Yeah. So, um, our first, I guess kickstart was Docent Emirates.

Um, so that was kind of like our, again, our first kind of, um, prototype outside of society. So, yeah, so far, so good. 

Justin Crosby: Right. Well uh, as I say, amazing success and, and when it comes to your audience then, I mean, is, is your audience kind of un unengaged with traditional news media and to traditional media as a whole?

Is and is that, you know, the key that you are providing, you know, that that, uh, that, that authentic voice that, that, that they're missing and don't, don't necessarily relate to mainstream legacy media? 

Ahmed Faid: Yeah, I think what I love about, I guess internet [00:44:00] culture and, and just socials again, the audience decides what they wanna see, of course, algorithm feeds sometimes what, um, what to view and based on what they like, et cetera.

But then again, you have a choice whether you want to consume, you know, mainstream media or look at platforms like those society or, you know, other interesting kind of, I guess, media outlets. So I guess, yeah, I think, um, we're an interesting place, again, without socials, before, you know, we had our standard channel one to five, right.

Um, and we didn't have much options kind of saying the same thing around news, whereas like socials is completely. Different, you know, um, it allows people to kind of really just, yeah, just focus on what they really wanna focus on and not really kind of feed into, I guess, what traditional news outlets are telling them, but if they want that, there's a place for that.

So I think social's just kind of just allowed that kind of, you know, really just low entry point for, for people like myself to kind of come into the space and just, yeah, just have our view on the world and hopefully allow of us to share their viewpoint. And again, if the, in, if the internet.

Decides that it's a great thing, and then I will decide it's a great thing and people will follow. So, so, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well, I mean we've just, uh, done a panel session. It was a really interesting [00:45:00] question I thought that was posed to the panel, which was, you know, are you, as your audience grows and gets older, I mean, are you looking to travel with them or are you constantly looking for a, a particular demographic like, you know, let's say 18 to 24, if you like, are, are you always trying to rework your content for that?

Or, or as your audience gets older, are you growing older with them? 

Ahmed Faid: Yeah, I, I feel like for, literally from, from day one, we've been in this for a few years now, like our core audience is millennials, also Gen Zs, and it's pretty much split 50 50. And I feel like we're, we're, what's interesting is that when we post content from a millennial standpoint it tends to do a little bit better.

Why? Because I feel like as a millennial, if you're your age, say for example, 30 plus, like you've been through a little bit more in life, like you had your twenties to really. Again, just figure shit out. Go through heartbreak or loss of a, of a, of a family member, just so you have something, a story to tell, right?

Whereas like when we, when we do stories with Gen Zs, now it's a little bit different because they're just kind of getting started. You know, maybe in university you just leaving [00:46:00] university, you haven't really got that life experience. 

Justin Crosby: They've got a broader world view, right? 

Ahmed Faid: Like a hundred percent. So, but Gen Zs love to consume and just see what again that that male generations of millennials are, have gone through.

Um, and again, it's not a crazy age, age difference. And again, when we do stuff around elder elder generation, um, the 60, 70 plus again does really, really well 'cause Gen Z and millennials just so interested in terms of what that next age category or generation can kind of teach us. So as I think people tend to kind of grow, um, with those society, I think that next wave of gen offers or whatever it is, will always hopefully just see us as a place where you just learn from others, you know, and just, just hopefully get wiser, um, learn from people, um, who've lived something or gone through something and hopefully provide hope so.

I think, yeah, we're not definitely trying to be at a place where we're trying to grow our audience, stay where we are, and hopefully our audience will just continue to come to, to, you know, 'cause they're gonna be been with 'em for a while. And again, the new generation also be a place for them also. So, so, yeah.

Justin Crosby: So, um, slightly, uh, a question, a [00:47:00] tangent, but it'll be interesting to see what your, what your thoughts are on that. Um, COVID was obviously a massive impact for young people all over the world. I mean, how, how do you think that's affected the generation that, you know, that a subscribing and, and, uh, listening to dose of society?

Do you think that's, because that was a shared moment that, uh, at a very sort of formative time for, for your audience 

Ahmed Faid: cannot Yeah, COVID bit was a, was a, again, probably a significant turning point for a lot of people, right? I guess for the first time ever the world stopped. So regardless of what industry you were in, like just the world just stopped, you know?

So I think before that, well, at a place where. Especially social media, a competition, or this person has this great lifestyle, this person who it is, but for a second it's like everyone was in the same in the same place. So I think that generation who kind of lived through that, especially the younger generation a bit more, have more empathy, I think to just other people.

And I think people start to realize you should never know what others are going through. Right? Whereas that before you just, you just was on a, was on a, [00:48:00] I guess, um, what do you call it, like a rollercoaster of life. I just didn't stop, you know, 

Justin Crosby: everyone was on their own track maybe, right? 

Ahmed Faid: Everyone was on their own track.

Everyone was doing their own stuff. And again, you just, you couldn't stop because people are, I guess, worried and you, you go on Instagram, you know, you compare and blah, blah, blah. Whereas like for that, again, everyone had that first time a shared experience of what, just going through your life regardless, I guess, I guess arguably what country you were in, 

Justin Crosby: but everyone was going through it together.

But, but, but individually, if you like, the same time, a 

Ahmed Faid: hundred percent. So I think I, I think it's hopefully, and again, you don't mean, again, the news doesn't show you this, but I think in different pockets of different cultures, I think. It has kind of developed that empathy of like, just never know what others are going through, you know?

And also that warning of like, you never know what, what happens tomorrow. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Because again, COVID just came all of a sudden and all, you know, all of a sudden everyone was at home and couldn't leave their houses and so yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. So, uh, let's talk a little bit about business then and the business of dose of society then.

Um, can you give us a, a sense of revenue streams? Is it purely, you know, ad revenue or you've got, [00:49:00] uh, partnership deals? Give us a, give us a sense of, uh, how you make money. 

Ahmed Faid: You know what's so funny, I think about revenue. So we had a, I think when I first ever started, and I'm talking, we pulling out two s in, we had an interesting kind of conversation with, um, Gary Vayner truck, and this first thing I asked him is like, how do we make money?

And I feel he broke it down. So simple. Like really and truly when, especially when it comes to content and just things in the world is totally like. Three to four ways, how you can make money within the world provide a service. You know, whether it's you are selling something or a product or it kind of, um, going into this, it kind of gave me the outlook of like, cool, let's not try to oversimplify this.

Let's build an audience. And once we build the audience, we knew that people would want to come and simply advertise or, you know, talk about something that they would obviously pay for. So our main ethos, we didn't even think about money. Our main ethos at the start was just build something where there's an audience.

And once you have an audience, you're able to obviously, um, sell something, 

Justin Crosby: build a product that people want, first of all, right percent, 

Ahmed Faid: a hundred percent. And that's what we did at the start. And then, and then slowly as we started to build, obviously, you know, brand would come to us and say, Hey, we'd love to pay X amount of money to, [00:50:00] you know, create content and, you know, showcase our product within your.

Within your, within your page, et cetera. So that was the kind of the first, um, understanding of, of, of making money across socials, you know, branded content. Then obviously as you start to grow a little bit more, you understand call the advertising element and advertising revenue and that Facebook actually pays for views and YouTube pays for views and Snapchat pays for views.

So that was the kind of, I guess the second element, understanding how powerful ad revenue can be and, and why we were so interested in, in that at that point was because that was just based on if you can tell a good story or not, you know, it wasn't based on anything else. It was based on how well can you tell a story and how many people can you reach and you, and you do a good job, we'll pay you, we'll pay you, um, a decent amount.

So for us that was this, it was bit more simpler because it would just be great at, be great at telling stories, understand how to tell stories and money will come. So that was an interesting model. Then I guess the third, um, element again is just how can we sell something without, again, I guess technically selling our soul.

So we came up with interesting strategies that let's create products that will actually impact people's lives. [00:51:00] So we created a card game, um, called Dare to Share. And we simply packaged our stream interview questions into, into a card game where families can play, loved ones can play, you can play people with adults and kids.

And it's been the, the feedback has been amazing where people have reached out to us via email when we've called our customers and they're saying how this has impacted their livelihood. So, so yes, I think for our e forces, again, just, you know, um, brand content, ad revenue and building products that actually could impact our audience's lives.

So, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And what about live? I mean, is that something, would you ever go out and do live shows or, you know, yeah, not 

Ahmed Faid: for sure. I think, I think even funnily enough, we haven't started a podcast yet. So I think podcasts 

Justin Crosby: really, yeah. Okay. Nothing. 

Ahmed Faid: Yeah, it's crazy. I know. And it's funny 'cause I always look back at to terms of what, just when I was kind of really just breaking down what dose society could look like.

And in 2017 the podcast was there, you know, so again, um, and if for us, like we're not if in, in the world where we want. Rush something and do it for the sake of doing it. And when we do launch these, launch these things, whether it's live or podcasts or even events, community events, we wanna do so [00:52:00] many things, but we wanna do it, you know, it's the right time, right place sometimes.

So, so we're confident when we do launch it something, hopefully it'll be well received because it's been well thought out. So, so, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. And do you have any sort of relationship with the sort of legacy, legacy TV industry at all? I mean, do you, would you ever consider that, is that something that you, have you been approached by TV companies?

Ahmed Faid: Yeah. None to be honest. Never. But again, you, you're seeing, you, you starting to see small, I guess, waves of traditional media, kind of really kind of taking a look at just what the social, what the world of socials could look like. Obviously with the Channel fours of the world, the b Bbc b BBC Threes of the world, starting to really understand that the impact of kind of creating content for a younger generation that understands the world of socials rather than the world of tv.

So yeah, we haven't yet. Um, but definitely seeing a rise of just kind of traditional media trying. Get into that world. So, so yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. So there's a never say never, right? There could be opportunity. 

Ahmed Faid: No, never, never. There's always a, there's always synergies, man, between what existed before, obviously what still exists compared to what's obviously new.

So I think there's always [00:53:00] ways of, of, of, um, times and places where people can kind of collaborate and create, create amazing stuff that can impact various generations. So, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: So you are a social video entrepreneur then. What are the key challenges that you find running your business and scaling it and building it to this point?

What, what's, what's been the, the toughest challenges for you to build the business? 

Ahmed Faid: I think as, as you grow you see it like what is more money? People say more money, more problems. It's bigger. The bigger the team, the bigger the problem. So I feel like every day, I think it's interesting like where, when we first started, the idea is just again, how to solve, I guess, business problems, right?

And, and, and I think if you are quite creative enough, if you're entrepreneur again, that's, you thrive off that. And I thrive off that, you know, how we able to kind of. Solve problems in a world of business or create something that doesn't exist, and all of a sudden it's become something, right? We've done it with society and a few other stuff now.

So that's something that we obviously we are used to whilst kind of building. But what comes new is when you obviously, when there's more money involved, had to distribute as, as a founder, and what should I [00:54:00] put more time and energy to? Same thing. You grow a team, again, you know, everyone has their own just problems in life or, um, situations.

So again, you have to be kind of, um, you 

Justin Crosby: have to be business owner as well as a creator, 

Ahmed Faid: right? Time ticket. Whereas like at, at the end you are more, you come in as you, you can create something and turn something into, you know, to turn, um, nothing to something all of a sudden, right? As, as an entrepreneur.

Whereas it's like once you create something, it's like it has again finances, it has employees, it has tax, this and blah, blah, blah. It's like, but stuff you're never prepped for, right? 'cause you don't care about that stuff. You, you are, you're an entrepreneur. You want to create something to solve a problem in the world.

Not think about finance or payroll or hey, HR and stuff like this. So, but I guess it's something that, um. I guess comes with it. Um, it's good to kind of, I guess learn around it. But again, those are some of the things that you just, you just learn. Um, again, it's not, you're not taught it. Um, you just learn of it.

Whereas, like on the other side of it, I think the entrepre entrepreneurship side's always the, the easiest part to an extent. Obviously it's hard, don't get me wrong, but it's just, you know, 

Justin Crosby: yeah. Just 

Ahmed Faid: problem solve for the world. 

Justin Crosby: [00:55:00] Yeah. So, um, is this your first time at Web Summit? 

Ahmed Faid: Fortunately it's my, I fixed my third time at Lisbon, right?

So the first time I was a attendee, um, a few years ago. Then yeah, managed to obviously meet the Web Summit team and kind of build a great relationship with them. From there, they've kind of really welcomed us and in many different ways. So yeah, we're, yeah, we are very faithful to the Web Summit team. They have an amazing team and we do a lot of cool stuff with them.

Time to time in Qatar. In Lisbon now, so, so yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And for content creators, you know, whether they're legacy media or more likely social video creators, you know, what's, why should they come to Web Summit? You know, what's going on here that, that, that people can take, take away? 

Ahmed Faid: I think regardless, just wherever you are in the world, whether you're starting out or you are, again, you've existed for many, many years, I think it's so important to just really understand what's happening in the world, whether it's technology or new, new forms of media.

It's always good to just kind of go out and just meet people. And that's how we just kind of really took off because we've always, yeah, we could, we create great content. And again, like I said to you before, like [00:56:00] socials this powerful where you create good content, you grow where it's like, but sometimes throughout my career, my journey, it's been meeting people at events like this and they've put you on to something or made that connection to something that's really impacted your, your business some sort of way.

So, and the only way you can obviously. I guess get in front of those people is being at places that summit and really just shaking hands and just meeting people and just building a great network of people who wanna support because every, again, what I love about Web Summit is everyone comes here because they want to benefit some sort of way or improve their life in some sort of way.

So everyone has the same kind of en agenda slash concept, and they come here, they know, cool, like, I wanna come out here something. But sometimes also you have to realize to come out of something, you have to give back something at the same time as well. So how can you add value to others as well? So, 

Justin Crosby: yeah.

Ahmed Faid: But yeah, it's important to, to, to kind of come to these events and just always shake hands. So, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: And, uh, one of the things that I've taken from being here, uh, this is my first time and I was amazed to see, you know, almost in front of my eyes, the democratization of of business in many ways. In terms of, you know, stuff that that [00:57:00] Poland is doing and, and Brazil, they've all got these pavilions around the place.

And, and, and it really feels that AI is driving that democratization that's allowing. Countries that are, you know, opening their arms to entrepreneurs and, and, uh, and, and, and investors and working hard in this new economy that we're seeing, you know, grow before our eyes. You know, that, that's one of the big takeaways from me.

It's, it feels like stepping out the old world and into the new a little bit when you walk into the doors here 

Ahmed Faid: and it's powerful again, you able to, like you said, it's a great point, b mt what other countries are up to, not even just individuals now. And again, AI is such a powerful tool. Same thing as the internet, PHI of social media.

Again, when you first kind of had that, the internet and a way of social media and another, a way of a, a ai, it's like, it's a level playing field. Like if you have a great concept of great ideas, there's so many tools now that can allow, help you to kind of get to that next stage, you know? Um, so AI has kind of allowed that same thing as when social media kind of faced first came on in 2000.

Eight slash 10, like you saw a massive weight [00:58:00] of, um, the lad Bibles of the world, you know, so it's like, and there were kids in their bedrooms, you know, starting something. But again, it, it kind of creates that level playing field that you can start something from nothing and become, you know, a massive media organization.

Same thing you're seeing again with ai, you're seeing companies come out, come outta nowhere because again, AI. I wouldn't say so developed. It's developed bigger. I think what the next, the next few years looks next will be at another level. But it's like, yeah, it gives you that, that elevation to kind of really start something regardless of where you are.

You got, you got, you got internet connection, you can access the internet, you can start something. So, 

Justin Crosby: yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems to me that, you know, there's, there's lots of startups here and uh, a red figure that I think there's over 1800 investors, a big, you know, 86%, uh, rise in the number of investors here that are looking to invest into startups, which, you know, really feels like, you know, this is the sort of place where we might see the next Facebook, uh, we might see the next, uh, you know, X or whatever.

These are, this is the place where these, uh, uh, you know, these apps are launched and, and, and grow. 

Ahmed Faid: Even I saw, um, [00:59:00] a, a post that Patty put out. Revolut was here a few years ago, you know? 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Ahmed Faid: I think one of the first ones. In Lisbon. In Lisbon. So you've been able to see, I see what Revolut I've done. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Ahmed Faid: Um, 

Justin Crosby: and that's Patty the boss of, uh, website.

Ahmed Faid: Correct? Correct. So yeah, I think he put something kinda LinkedIn and just showing Yeah, edge where they kind of started and they were just had a little stand in in the summit a few years ago, so, um, so yeah. Powerful to see. 

Justin Crosby: So, uh, last question. Tell us, you know, what is next for Dose of Society over the next year or so.

Is is probably pointless to me saying, you know, giving a, looking further ahead than a year, but by this time you are back at Web Summit Summit next year. What, what, what are you hoping to achieve? Yeah, 

Ahmed Faid: and also we're super bullish again and, and guess social commerce. I think it's a massive movement.

You're seeing TikTok obviously, and before TikTok, obviously China. Um, so social commerce is something we'll look it up heavily and also community. So how are we able to kind of, um, take our audiences outside, obviously where they live and build communities around the world. Um, whether it's community meetups or community events, I think people are, I think where people are traveling so often, um, and move to different countries, whether it's the Middle East, I just here in the moment, is that [01:00:00] how we able to kind of create spaces and pockets of communities around the world that people are able to kind of, um.

You know, go to places in New York. I know there's a, a, those society away, you know, um, somewhere, um, in their city. So, see, I think communities, a is is, uh, one of the biggest things we're looking at at the moment, so, yeah. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Well that's, that's what's what's key. The, at the Center of the Digital First Economy is building communities around the content that you are, you are doing, and you are doing an amazing job at that.

Um, Ahmed, thank you so much for, uh, joining me. I'd love to, uh, spend time with you and, uh, love to have you involved in, uh, one of our TellyCast events Right. In next year. 

Ahmed Faid: Definitely. I'll be there. Hopefully you, we'll be able to do again, more of a, again, long form podcast. Also, again, know, we've been planning for, for a while now, but yeah, definitely.

Yeah, love what you're doing. Definitely be at your events soon. So yeah, appreciate your time. 

Justin Crosby: All right. Thanks a lot. Hi Eileen. Good to see you. 

Eline van der Velden: Good to see you too. 

Justin Crosby: And since the last time we spoke on TellyCast, there's uh, you've of course a bit of a kerfuffle, really. I think I have huge global news story and, you know, really sort of encapsulated the whole zeitgeist around ai.

We're gonna talk a little [01:01:00] bit about. That in a second. But first of all, what are you doing at Web Summit? What are you doing here? 

Eline van der Velden: Oh, I was speaking here about Tilly. You know, I, I love today taking people's questions. You know, it was audience questions. And I am always very keen to speak to anybody about AI and, you know, address concerns and discuss how to move forward in an ethical way in the AI space.

'cause I think that's really important that it comes from the creators to creative industry as opposed to being imposed by the tech industry. So it's really important for the creative industry to actually, you know, accept this new technology because otherwise it will be imposed by the tech industry and it's here to stay.

Justin Crosby: It really is. And just walking around Web Summit today, the impact of AI is just, you know, tangible. I mean, everybody's talking about ai. Every new app that's being launched every new development we've got uh, pavilions from countries all around the world. Which I found was really interesting 'cause it, it, it feels like the democratization of the web actually.

You know, you've see, we've seen [01:02:00] new developing countries becoming powerhouses in their own right. And so it's, I think it's gonna change things for massively over the next year or so. But, uh, but, um, so let's, let's talk about Tilly Tilly Norwood, which is your AI creation. The last time you were on TellyCast, uh, you hadn't launched it.

So you know, our jumping off point, I suppose was the last time we spoke. You talked about, you know, how anybody now can actually be, become a Hollywood studio and Hollywood Studios is reliant on Hollywood actors and Hollywood Tamon. And so you, you created Tilly Norwood for anybody that, I mean, everybody's heard of Tilly Norwood now.

Um, but for anybody who's not aware, just brings us up to speed on, you know, what who Tilly Norwood is and what the launch story was that caused this global sensation. 

Eline van der Velden: Yep. So, just to be completely clear, particle six is very much about helping the traditional film and TV industry by say, you know, they only are missing 20 or 30% of their budget.

We can look at their script [01:03:00] or at their show and work in AI in ways to reduce the budget, but keeping real actors and everything in there. Now, however, we at Particle six and at Sequoia, Sequoia is a separate vehicle. We feel very strongly about ethical use of ai, especially digital twins. You know, we should never use a someone's likeness or uh, without, you know, explicit consent of fair and fair compensation.

So we thought about this like in the AI genre. We would never just use an actor, an existing actor. We would wanna maybe create our own actors in that space. And I've always been very proud to been, you know, educated creatively in the uk. I always thought that the UK is a, you know, British global creative powerhouse.

And that's why I came there from, from au, which is small, I in the Caribbean. And British talent has always been a huge export the uk. And so I felt in order for Britain to keep up in this new creative renaissance, it would [01:04:00] need to have a British talent export in the AI sphere as well. And that's why I wanted to create Tillies.

So that was around February and it was a long process of lots of human input, every step on the, on the way. We really thought about every little bit, including her name. So there if, if, if it's correct, there shouldn't be anybody in the world called Tilly Norwood. And I think Ryan Renolds tried really hard to find a tele Norwood for his, um.

His advert that he did. Uh, but he couldn't, he founded Natalie Norwood. And so we really thought about the name very carefully, what that name represents, how Tilly would resonate with the audience. And then there was months of, I think we have over 2000 images of her that were not right. So it took a really long time to iterate and iterate to get to the right Tilly image.

First she was very airbrushed and maybe too glamorous. And then it was about the skin texture and the freckles. And so it took a long, long time. And I'm really [01:05:00] pleased with the output because I think she did resonate and she did spark a conversation around the world that we needed to have. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, well, she certainly did.

And I think, um, I mean, give us a sense of some of the news outlets that that covered this story. 

Eline van der Velden: Oh, I mean, it was all across from, I think, Japan to little villages in Austria, to CBS and, you know, all the. Big US broadcasters as well. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. And, and, and the, the, I guess the, the takeout from that, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, this underlying story, there was just this fear of AI a little bit.

Uh, and, you know, oh, AI's coming to take over, you know, and, and replace talent. I think, was it Emily Blunt? I think was, it was, it was 

Eline van der Velden: really scary. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. I actually got to Emily Buns who saw her a few times, uh, interviewed and, and just saying how scared she was. Yeah. A number of different, uh, actresses were talking about this, but, you know, that's, that wasn't your intention, obviously.[01:06:00] 

No, not at all. Um, but, but it seems like the, the press kind of took this story and then sort of ran with it and almost built their own narrative around it. Is that, is that what you, would you agree with that? Yeah, 

Eline van der Velden: look, I mean, it is scary. I, I agree with all of them. Um. I also agree with SAG after saying she's a computer generated character.

She absolutely is. So it is scary, but that's, I remember seeing these generations for the first time and being like, whoa, this is where we're at. This is where the tech's at. And so in a way, it was a great way to show the world, this is where the tech's at. We need to all know, and the creative industry needs to know that this is where the tech's at.

Right? And so Tilly was able to do that. And look, the fear around it was very normal and very human. And I think that's okay. I think it's then about companies like us to set the guidelines and the ethical rules in place as, so what are we going to use Tilly for Now? She's had loads of [01:07:00] offers for film and TV to be an actor in a, in a mainstream sort of TV show or film where she would be amongst live actors in the traditional filmmaking space.

That's not what she was designed for. I think that's where some of the misconceptions were. She was made for the AI genre, and that's where we'll keep her from. Now, she might even employ some real actors and she's employing a lot of humans behind the scenes as well. You have to also remember, AI is made by humans, and it takes a lot of human input to get good AI 

Justin Crosby: work.

Yeah. This isn't just something that you could stick into you know, runway or mid journey, whatever. 

Eline van der Velden: I mean, you can, you can just create an AI actor on VO three or SOAR two like this. But will it have the same reaction as Tilly Norwood? Probably not. 

Justin Crosby: No. No. And you know, I well, it'd be good, interesting to talk about what's next then for Tilly.

Because now, I mean, there, there must, there was a lot of negative reaction and, and I think a lot of that was unfair actually. Actually let's talk about that for a second. You know, there was, [01:08:00] there was, there was quite a lot of vitriol around this as well. Mm-hmm. Yes. Um. How did that affect you?

Because this is not some, there's something that you've, you know, you've been had the experience of trolls before, which we talked about on, on the last episode of TellyCast when you were actually a YouTuber a number of years ago. Talk us through, you know, what, what, what that was like, because that must have been pretty upsetting in its own right.

Eline van der Velden: Yeah, look, I mean, I, I switched it all off as, as, as soon as I could. I think, you know, trolls are part of the internet. I think it's not a great part of the internet. I wouldn't be proud if I was part of the trolling community and, you know, you get really awful things in there and, and many other people, you know, have spoken out about this.

So I'm not the only person to face this, but I would say it's especially bad or I think Instagram was probably the worst. And. I, I think as a humanity we should change something about that. So that doesn't, doesn't happen. And people should know that if you threaten or death threat somebody online like that is the [01:09:00] equivalent of doing that in real life and that is harassment.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Eline van der Velden: Which I think a lot of people are not aware. 

Justin Crosby: Did you have that? 

Eline van der Velden: Yes. Yes I did. Mm. So I think people need to know that what you see online is, is still real. Right. But look, it's, it's also part of this global stage that Tilly's on. So, you know, and I really, really, there's also, I got very heartfelt messages and I totally sympathize with them, and we are trying to respond to every single one of them.

So, you know, I, and people can disagree. That's totally fine. There's, there's a line between disagreement and there's a, and then there's threatening and, and awful behavior. So, yeah, it depends. But we also, and this is the thing that people maybe didn't see, got loads and loads of fans and loads of love, which was wonderful.

And so many people reached out to us 'cause they'd come to our site and seen what we could do and they realized that we were about premium AI content. And so it's, it launched a whole load of really exciting projects making premium AI content with new partners. 

Justin Crosby: Right. Fantastic. Well [01:10:00] that's, that's, that's great to hear.

And it, I mean, it really sparked the conversation, didn't it? It sparked this global conversation about where we are right now. What's, what's achievable, what's possible. And, uh, so I'm, I'm delighted that there's a, you know, there's a really positive outcome and, and you are here, right here at the web summit talking about ai.

What, what were some of the more interesting questions you got? 'cause it was a q and a session that you did. Mm-hmm. What were some of the most interesting questions you got from the, from the audience? 

Eline van der Velden: Um, I guess I, I love talking about the tech behind it. So I think the tech's fascinating. I see it a little bit like, you know, the way mathematicians and accountants have had calculators in Excel sheets for so long.

And this is finally a calculator for the creative mind. So I, that's why I love playing around with it. And then people also, I think there's a misunderstanding about how the system works because, I mean, there's, nobody explains how an LLM works, right? So it's, it's been trained on billions and billions of ounces of tater and that should probably be paid for, right?

That's in the courts right now. [01:11:00] Let's hope it gets paid for, I agree that it should be paid for. My content is probably in that content as well, that it's been trained on. I mean, I probably won't see any compensation for that because I signed away rights as an actor or something at some point, but I don't mind.

Justin Crosby: This was when, by the way, for people that, dunno, you were actually, you know I was an actor. Talent. Yeah. You were on, yeah. Yeah. Okay. 

Eline van der Velden: I was on BBCI had a few shows, uh, on BBC, and I was a YouTuber before, before then. So yes, it's probably trained on lots of my stuff, but I don't mind. And the reason I don't mind is because I get to use it.

So I'm glad it's trained on me. I I encourage it to be trained on me because if it was only trained on a specific data set, that wouldn't be good for me. It's good to have been trained on my crazy, crazy stuff. Yeah. And so going forward, like it democratizes creativity, right? So it means that everybody in the world is allowed to use these tools, many of these tools, and not just one company.

And that's really important. So what happens after all this training? It [01:12:00] then is about a statistical probability of a pixel in a certain position in a frame to generate an image. Now there's only a finite number of positions that these pixels can be in. So there's only a finite number of images you can create, and you can manipulate the position of those po pixels by your word prompt.

So you can change that prompt over and over again to get that positioning. The same goes for moving image p, pixel positioning, and then moving. It's a fixed number of moving images that can be generated. So soon enough we will have all the types of pixel positions in there, and then we can generate whatever we want.

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Eline van der Velden: Including a woman with hairy legs, which I tried for a long time many years ago, and it wasn't possible, and it is now. So that's good. 

Justin Crosby: Should you want That should be, 

Eline van der Velden: should you want that. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. Um, so, um, so what's next then? Eileen. I mean you know, it sounds like that there's loads of. You know, loads of positive outcomes have come from, from the Lloyd of Tilly which is, which is great.

But what, what's next? What, [01:13:00] what's next for particle six? The Sequoia and and Tilly. 

Eline van der Velden: Okay. So I see Tilly as an onion. First we did the outside of what she looks like and her name, and now we're peeling off the layers. What's her personality, what's her brain like, what's her sense of humor like? And we're developing all of that.

And I can't wait for next year for that to be released. And then we will be making a lot of content with Tilly in the coming year. So I'm really excited to show that. 

Justin Crosby: Right. And, uh, can, will she come on TellyCast? Have a chat? 

Eline van der Velden: Hope soon? 

Justin Crosby: Yeah, 

Eline van der Velden: I should be a, I hope she'll be invited. 

Justin Crosby: Yes. Obviously this is the invitation right now.

And and, uh, what are you doing for the rest of the web summit? Have you got any other, any other sessions that you're doing? 

Eline van der Velden: Yes, I'll be doing a session tomorrow. Talking about Tilly and the future of Tilly as well. And yeah, I, I just, I'm really curious about how people are using AI in different ways and you know, it's, for us, it's all about creating original content.[01:14:00] 

And in order to do that, it takes many years to sort of realize what is the ethical use of ai and how do you use it as a force for good, right? So we want to create or get more stories told. That's really key. And so, because we've been prompting for so long, we also have to, you know, really clear guidelines as to what you can say in a prompt.

And so I, I, I wanna communicate to people how they should start to prompt and to not make any references to copyright. It works in your prompts, you know, don't say I want a Disney character like this, or I want. An actress like that, 

Justin Crosby: because that must be the first thing that anybody does when they get on an LL and they say, I want this to look like you know, masters of the Universe or Yeah.

You know, Tom Cruise or whatever. Yes. And, and, and, and clearly that's unethical just as a, on a, your starting point. Right. 

Eline van der Velden: Which, you know, over time we found it to be unethical because when, well, when you're producing normally you might have used such references, right. When you're pitching or something.

Yeah. But actually with [01:15:00] an LLMI wouldn't be so specific because it is much more specific at, at, at knowing what that means. 

Justin Crosby: Yeah. 

Eline van der Velden: So I wouldn't and, and I think this is just the start of it, you know, of this creative renaissance and we're just trying to, with AI now imitate what we can already do in normal, and then once people get used to that, the creativity roof will open up and we will start to see more creative work.

Than we've never seen before. And that's when it will get really exciting. Yeah. So I think 2027 is 

Justin Crosby: 27 is the, is is the year that what, what, what 

Eline van der Velden: that, we'll, the humanity is ready to see something a little crazier. 

Justin Crosby: Right. Well, that's a great point to end on. Elene, thank you so much for joining me.

It's great to see you again. And, uh, and we should talk about prompts, you know, the, the, the science and, and, and the art of prompting, actually. Yeah. 'cause that, that'd be so I'd love to maybe you can c when you come on with Tilly, we can talk about it as well. 

Eline van der Velden: Sure. 

Colin Furze: Well, [01:16:00] that's about it for this week's show.

I hope you enjoyed it. TellyCast was recorded 

Justin Crosby: in Lisbon and produced by Spirit Studios. We'll be back again next week with another show. Until then, stay safe.