Take Siesta: helping ASMR YouTubers earn more from their fans





Some Background

Back in 2021, we had a thriving contract manufacturing and 3PL business that acted as a one-stop-shop supply chain solution for consumer brands — think supply chain as a service. Our first and biggest client, had launched her supplement brand on the back of a social media following of 15k+ fans and had grown her company to high 7-figures revenue run rate in less than three years (impressive, right?). Seeing her brand's success, led us to formulate our own thesis in the creator economy space:

“What if we leverage our existing supply chain infrastructure to build the easiest way for creators to launch their own consumer products?”



Finding the ‘Perfect’ Test Market

Our first item in the to-do list was finding a creator that would be interested in launching a product with us. To achieve this we first focused on finding a YouTube niche, with a strong, growing community, where it would be easy to identify and launch a product that served the needs of such community. And that's how we stumbled across the ASMR category — ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. If you are not familiar, ASMR videos involve whispering into a microphone and a lot of people report that the whispering generates a tingling sensation in the back of the neck. As a test market, here are some of the things we liked about ASMR:

  1. Most people use ASMR to help cope with stress and lack of sleep. Even better, there's evidence that ASMR is effective. “A reported 80% of people who experience ASMR noted that it had a positive effect on their mood, with benefits lasting for several hours after using ASMR media." (Sleep Foundation, 2022). This was relevant to us because sleep and relaxation supplements were our bread and butter.
  2. We quickly learned that YouTube was beginning to demonetize videos of (mostly female) ASMR YouTubers with no good reasoning or explanation. Although unfortunate, we felt that creators in the space understood, first-hand, the importance of diversifying their monetization streams.
  3. Finally, ASMR is a massive and growing trend. In fact, there's more search interest on YouTube for ASMR than for "candy" or "chocolate." Odds are; however, most people have never heard of it. In fact, the top-searched question about ASMR on Google is, "What is ASMR?"




The Partnership & One Big Takeaway

It took one cold email and a good amount of Zoom calls to convince FrivviFox and Matty Tingles, to partner with us and launch Take Siesta, their own sleep products. We acted as an operational cofounder, handling the backend of launching a consumer product, while Frivvi and Matty were the creatives behind the brand driving sales.

My one big takeaway from this fun project is that influencers will lead the next multi-million dollar brands — the future of consumer brands won't be PepsiCo's, but rather You-Corps. Plus, both Frivvi and Matty are some of the most talented and creative people that I've had the chance to work with.














© 2023. EM Advisors, LLC