Tara and I are pitching a TV show this week based on the viral airline sketch series we had from a few months ago.

And it’s a perfect example of what being a leveraged creator is all about:

Build and compound permissionless leverage (digital media) now, and use it to attract permissioned leverage later.

Here’s how I think about it.

Since 2021, Tara and I have written two feature films and three TV pilots. All of them have been read by producers, executives, and buyers at the highest level of Hollywood.

Those screenplays are a form of permissionless leverage. No one needs to give you permission to write them, and once you do, you can send them out into the world as a PDF and anyone with an internet connection can read them.

But the reality is, without being a “name” writer (someone who’s gotten their movie made and didn’t lose the producer a ton of money), a great script isn’t enough anymore to attract permissioned leverage. This is leverage that someone else needs to give you in the form of money or labor for you to turn your script into a movie or TV show.

As a writer at our level, we need to find a way to add more value than just a great script. So, Tara and I embarked on building a YouTube channel.

Since we started Tara’s channel about 10 months ago, we’ve been publishing two sketches a week. In that time, we’ve built an audience of over 5,700 subscribers and racked up almost seven million total views.

These sketches (and vertical series… coming soon!) help us do three things:

1) build an audience we own,

2) refine our writing and production skills, and

3) serve as proof of concept for TV show and movie ideas.

The third bullet is what we’ve just done with our airline sketch. We turned the viral sketch into a proof of concept for a comedy TV show based at an airport. Tara’s character from the sketch is part of the show, and we’ve added a few other elements to flesh out the world.

But the sketch is the big selling point. When something goes viral, it’s proof that you touched on something universal. In our case, it was the universal pain point of flying on a budget airline.

But I went even deeper. I went through all the YouTube comments across all the budget airline sketches, and pulled out the stories and reactions from real people. Then, I identified common themes among those comments, and used them to inform the content of our pitch.

That way, we can help develop the show around what people really connected to in the sketch series. I’m hoping that’s a key selling point for potential buyers.

Not only that, but we now have an audience of 5,700+ people who would at least give the TV show a shot because it’s based on something they all really connected to.

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All of this is in the service of adding enough value as a writer and creator so that the gatekeeper can only come to one obvious conclusion: a “yes.”

And we want to make it as easy as possible on them to get there. Because if they do say yes, they are putting their reputation and job on the line to do so. That’s not something I take lightly.

TV shows are expensive. Production is expensive. And none of it is an exact science. There’s a near-infinite list of TV shows packed with “names” at every level that “could not miss,” that did, indeed, miss.

But the more a stakeholder can defend their decision after the fact if the show doesn’t work (“we had a built in audience,” “the sketch really worked,” etc.), the easier it is to say “yes” in the first place.

That’s why most of the movies and TV shows you see today are based on previously existing IP (intellectual property). It’s a very low risk, defensible bet to make because, in theory, you’ve got a built in fanbase and a proven world you can point to say, “this should of worked!”

The IP that we’re building on our YouTube channel is all about making it easier for buyers to say yes. Let’s see what happens!

Thanks for reading.

-Thomas

P.S. ChatGPT is my superpower.

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

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