Transcript
Dude Perfect: Cory Cotton and Tyler Toney (2021)
0:05 Hey everyone, it's Guy here. So our team is taking a little time off for the holidays here. So we thought we'd bring you one of our favorite interviews from a few years ago. This is with two founders of one of the most successful YouTube channels. Ever Dude perfect. Now, since twenty twenty one when we first ran this interview, the channel has gone from ten to nearly
0:28 eighteen billion views and it now has over sixty million subscribers. We'll have a few more updates for you at the very end, so be sure to stick around, but for now Enjoy the show. We are coming around and I'm like, This is the airplane shot, this is the first one we ever take. And so I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is gonna be Like I I have no control over where this goes. I have never I've never dropped a ball out of a plane, like who knows? And it was kinda starting to rain. I remember
0:59 When I put my hands out the window, I was like, Oh gosh, that kinda hurts because the rain was like spitting behind the propeller and it just felt like a bunch of needles going into my hands. So I drop the ball out of the side of the plane. And Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.
1:29 They built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a bunch of college friends turn their backyard basketball rivalry into a viral video. And then a viral entertainment franchise. Dude perfect. Они мост популяр чанал зевер.
1:46 You might be surprised to discover that I don't spend much time on YouTube. Okay, of course you knew that. I'm an early middle aged dad with a busy life. So the fact that I even know the names Mr. Beast or PewDiePie or the Paul brothers has everything to do with having two boys who are approaching their teenage years. And among all the clips they'll show me, I've been consistently entertained by a group of five guys who perform outrageous stunts. and go by the name Dude Perfect. So when we decided to interview them for this episode of the show, I had to give up my mic for a few minutes to some wild eyed fans who were hanging around the studio. My children.
2:40 Alright. There was a soda can and the card was thrown and it split the soda can in half. How did she do that? Yeah, so like he has a couple of different types of cards and one of the kinds that he has is metal. And so that one he had to stand for. These five guys who call themselves Dude Perfect.
3:02 are among the most popular entertainers in America among three to fourteen year old boys and girls, which is why my kids insisted on asking questions of their own. When you scored that world record in Oklahoma when you shot the ball, like two hundred twenty feet And you made it in the hoop? When you went to sleep at night, what is what were you feeling? What was I feeling after I made the shot? Uh, what Do Perfect produces are stunningly complex tricks. a basketball hurled from an airplane into a hoop far below.
3:36 A hole in one golf shot off a multi-story roof into the hole a thousand feet away. A bowling ball being hurled from a moving car at dozens of pins for a perfect strike. And none of it. is faked. It's all real. It might just take a hundred or even a thousand tries before it works.
3:56 Sometimes one shot for a single video? can take two weeks. As of this recording Dude Perfect has nearly 57 million subscribers to its YouTube channel. The guys are among the biggest YouTubers in the world.
4:12 And it's a big business. With tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue, a massive live show that sells out stadiums and arenas. television deals, and even a few food products and partnerships with big brands. But of course. Like any great business story? The Rise of Dude Perfect as a powerhouse brand?
4:33 Was a slow burn. More than a decade in the making. For years, they'd drive halfway across Texas every weekend to shoot videos, and then pull all-nighters to edit them. And this was long before YouTube became a way to make decent money. But one of the things that's made Dude Perfect so popular is that They're actually nice guys. They're not mean. They don't get into beefs or boxing matches with other YouTubers. They don't swear.
5:03 And their videos. Despite what I said above. actually look effortless. But As I say, and as you will hear
5:11 That effortlessness? Takes a hell of a lot of effort. Dude Perfect is based in Frisco, Texas, not far from Dallas, and just a few hundred miles from where they all met at college. The five dudes are Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert, two brothers Corey and Coby Cotton, and Tyler Toney. And there was no way I could speak to all five of them in one sitting, but I did speak to two. Tyler and Corey.
5:36 His twin brother Kobe is also Dude, perfect. Our parents. Love'em to death, but they decided to confuse the whole world. We had solid real first names. I'm William Cotton and he's John Cotton and they decided to go with the tricky middle names for what we were actually gonna be called and that's Corey and Coby. So just one letter apart. I was like, wow, your parents called your brother Coby and called you Corey.
6:00 And your identical twins, but that's actually your middle names. Correct. They uh set us up for A little bit of a confusing life I think, but it's okay. We like it. Mm. And and you guys uh were Preachers kids, right? Like your your dad was a was a pastor kind of in in and around the Houston area?
6:16 That's right. So we definitely grew up playing tag in in churches and got my finger jammed in a in a door that Kobe slammed on me as we were playing tag and we always felt like everyone was looking at us, right? I mean you're we're just the pastors kids, so you're there. Everyone knows us. We don't necessarily know them, but you know, you've got all these people fifty older than you walking up to you and rubbing your head and oh man, you're getting so much bigger and it's all that kind of thing. Yeah. And did you was that okay? Were you okay with that?
6:44 Honestly, it was really fun. I know people have different kind of opinions of what it's like to be a pastor's kid. I feel like usually it goes either really well or really poorly, but ours was on the good side for sure. And Tyler, from what I understand, you grew up in in prosper Texas or just just outside. And I F from what I understand, your dad was also involved in the in the faith community. Uh he was like
7:06 Kinda well known I guess'cause he sang in a in a southern gospel m music group. that that your grandfather was also involved w is that right? Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember vividly going back when I was four, five, six years old. My dad and my uncles and cousin and grandpa they'd all be at the house gathered around just the biggest speaker in the house, you know, singing like four inches from each other's ears, trying to nail their parts and I remember laying in bed at like ten, eleven PM at night and just hearing them
7:34 Blast that music downstairs and for the uh older generation and a lot of those southern Baptist churches, they were they were celebrities, I guess you could say. And then your dad went and worked a for a software company. Yep. Yep, went to uh basically software companies. He was at Netscape when they were kind of the original Internet Explorer browser.
7:54 And my mom stayed at home with us. With me and my sister. And she was a stay at home mom. As a kid Were you were you a good athlete?
8:04 From from an early age. I say that I was an above average athlete. My dad always He was always telling me, you know teaching me about mental toughness and hustle and how that can overcome a Lack of talent in a lot of areas, and so
8:19 I played everything. I mean, I played a lot of hockey, played football, basketball, baseball, track, golf. And I would venture to guess that If you were to pull People in Texas.
8:30 About their faith. that high school football would rank pretty high up there. But it's really important, right? It's like a really big deal in Texas, especially in small towns where they don't have professional teams and and and Tyler, you play like you weren't just uh on the high school football team, you were the quarterback, right? That's a but that's a big job. Yeah. It was all about Friday Night Lights, football. I mean if all the shows are are pretty accurate as far as that goes. Literally the whole town would come out and watch those football games and stores would close down and things would get moved, other school activities would get postponed. So it's just a little different feel than it is now with how many people are living in this area. I mean, how do you I'm just curious as a as a seventeen, eighteen year old kid,
9:15 That's a lot of pressure. To be the quarterback. Everyone knows you, they're all coming to the games. How do you deal with that? I never really felt pressure being the quarterback. I I I would get nervous before the games, but I mean, as soon as you took that first snap, you forget about all that other stuff, like I just I love competing. I loved
9:34 taking my guys out against your guys and see who comes out on top. At least for me I didn't think about the people in the stands or anything like that. I just focused on my guys and having fun and I I mean those looking back, those were by far Friday nights playing football were by far my favorite memories. Yeah. Corey, you were also a high school athlete, but I I've seen you and I've seen you evolve over the years, and you are a much slimmer man than Tyler is. So I have to imagine you did not play high school football.
10:04 No, there was no uh high school football in my career that is accurate. Uh I was a basketball guy. Um I will say that my brother and I were I mean, we were like your typical obsessed short basketball kid. I mean if you went and looked at my whole childhood, I had what was the NBA's old slogan, I love this game. my mom painted I love this game in the whole basketball NBA font on our wall, and it's so funny looking back now, especially now that I have young kids, because I genuinely thought that I was going to the NBA. I mean if you ask me, Fourth grade, seventh grade, eleventh grade. I probably no joke would have told you at an absolute minimum I was gonna play college basketball. And I I mean, I was not getting the type of playing time even in uh in early high school that it takes in order to get there. And it's just so funny looking back. But I just loved it so much.
10:56 Alright, so both of you d you don't gr did not grow up knowing each other. but both of you would end up going to Texas A and M and College Station. Um, Corey, what was your kind of thinking? I mean you were eighteen and ready to go to college, were you thinking, Yeah, maybe I'll I'll do what my dad does and and be a like a a a spiritual leader, or or did you have other thoughts in your mind? That was definitely at least a leading candidate in my mind. So my brother and I went to school together. We pretty much did everything together. I mean, I'm sure that uh Some twins go the opposite direction, but we enjoyed
11:28 you know, hanging out together and stuff, so that was never really a question of if we were gonna go to the same college or not. So we went together. We both worked at the Apple store seasonally, off and on in high school and college. And so I'd say there are two kinda top career paths for both of us where we're either gonna go into some sort of sports ministry because we both love basketball so much Or we were gonna work, try to, corporately at Apple. And that's why we chose to be communication majors, speechcom majors at Texas A and M. How'd you do a school?
11:55 I mean, were you a good student? Honestly, I was a good student. Kobe always squeaked me out slightly when we graduated college he uh squeaked into Suma cum laude and I was nothing, right? I was just right below the to where they don't say anything. So alphabetically his name comes right before me. And so, you know, in front of thirty thousand people, this is A and M huge stadium. Coby walks across and it takes him a long time to kinda say his whole Ja and Coby Cotton Suma cum laude and everyone claps and it's William Corey Cotton.
12:26 It's just a short nothing after it. And so it's these little moments that I uh think about. But we enjoyed competing and honestly it's been a fun dynamic. So you were a good good student, you worked hard. Were you I I know you when you went on to Texas A and M, you I didn't even know this would major. I didn't even know you could major this I mean, it is a Texas AM was founded as an agricultural school, but I didn't know you could major in hunting and fishery. That was your focus. Is that what you thought you would do something in like commercial fishing or ranching, like what did you think you were gonna do? Yeah, so it was wildlife and fisheries. Hunting and fishing would have been an even better maybe but that one wasn't offered, unfortunately. Um but no, so I started off. I was gonna go be a dentist. My uncle, uh my dad's oldest brother is a dentist.
13:11 And uh I was like, Man, that'll be cool. I'll go do that and Started uh on that path and got to a little class called organic chemistry and decided, like, nah, maybe I should go do something else that, you know, I enjoy a little bit more and then I Figure out okay, well there's uh
13:30 duck identification lab that's uh part of this wildlife and fisheries major. And uh I was like, man, I'm all in on that. And it was a whole lot less math and English classes and a whole lot more Uh wildlife and ecosystems and I didn't really know what I was gonna go do with that. I kinda thought maybe like game warden or something along those lines, or ranch management or Something like that, but I just knew that I enjoyed that a lot more than being a dentist. Ty, why don't you rip off some duck names for us? Got all kinds of duck names. Gadwall, Mallard, Pintail, Cinnamon Teal, Blue Wing Teal, Greenwing Teal. Widgens, the duck lab was a nice that was one of those where I didn't have to do a lot of studying beforehand. Show down the ECA. I was like, man, this is the easiest class I've ever taken in my life.
14:16 Alright, so fall of two thousand six, Cory, you and your brother Show up. at college station and you I guess you find a a a place to live together, right? In like a an off campus house. And you're just you know, your regular students there. And um
14:33 Tell me that about H how you started to meet'cause this is you didn't meet Tyler w right away. I think first you met two other guys who would eventually become part of Dude Perfect. How did you meet those guys? That's right. So we Tyler's a year younger
14:47 than the rest of us. So you're correct. We met him the following year actually through Garrett, which we'll get to, but my brother and I show up on campus and we actually went to I mean let's call it what it is, right? There's this thing called fish camp. at A and M and it's essentially an awesome brainwashing camp to help people that don't know all the traditions about Texas A and M. And then there's kind of a similar one that's uh a little more Christian oriented called Impact Camp. And we all went to both of them, but at the Christian one we happened to meet each other and so my brother and I met uh Garrett, and we also met a guy named Sean and we all kinda hit it off real quick. And so we kinda grouped up very quickly that freshman year.
15:24 So you meet Garrett and uh and he's just a a c a cool guy that You ki kinda start hanging out with you guys have a lot in common. I think we just connected on a you know fun friendship level first, but we all had the same hobbies. He's his main sport for sure was basketball as well, so we pretty quickly formed an intramural team and we hadn't met Cody yet. We ended up meeting him through playing basketball up at the rec center in our illustrious intramural career. And We also had a Bible study that we were all a part of together, so those two things really kinda kept us connected outside of when we were at school.
15:55 T talk to me a little bit about that.'Cause there's a discipline in going to that every week or more than more than once a week. Was that connected to just the f the way you were raised, or was it Was it part of a discipline like getting up and exercising every day. I mean Tell me yeah, tell me about wha why you you guys are
16:15 It's a good question. I think A combination of both, right? It was a little bit how we were raised, I think. All of us had a really good experience growing up I say in the church, but really I just mean with our faith. And because of that we we met people that felt the same way and there's just a bond there. It doesn't mean that we weren't really good friends with other people that didn't necessarily believe the same things as us, but I think we grew up and experienced what it was like to have really close, strong friendships with guys that could back you up and had your back and things like that. So then when we moved and we were all on our own that's something we were looking for. We were looking to replicate some of the friendships and kind of brotherhood that we had in high school and and growing up in in our own separate lives. And that's how essentially we met these guys, combined that with with basketball.
16:59 Yeah. Tyler, you come to uh Texas A and M the following year. In the fall of two thousand seven. How'd you meet these guys? Uh how did you even come into contact with them?'Cause it's huge Texas AM is a city, it's massive. So Garrett and I went to high school together. Got it. And Garrett was already hanging out with those guys. Yeah, so he went down to A and M and then when I got down there he introduced me to
17:21 The twins and Cody. And uh the first time I went with Gary, he was like, Hey, let's go to these guys' house. I want you to meet them. There's some cool guys. They're super cool. Yeah, super cool guys. I walk into their house and they have the Solja Boy dance uh up on their projector and they're like learning the dance moves to Soldier Boy. Dead soldier boy. Yeah. They were cranking that soldier boy as I walked in the door. And I was like, I don't I don't know. I don't know about these guys. Maybe going to do something else tonight, but no, it was uh That was my first introduction to'em and they got a little bit cooler after that. And and they were they were like kinda sports guys, like they they were into sports and playing sports and and I think you also joined the the Bible study group, right?
18:07 Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean I think Any time that you share especially a fate, but then also interests with with other people that are like minded. that's a very natural progression of friendship and allows for a much deeper friendship and obviously beyond. So I think it's been cool to see that progress over the last
18:26 I mean gosh, like fourteen years now, something like that. Yeah. In a place like Texas AM there's gonna be and I I'm I'm totally projecting I don't know, I've never been there, but I think'cause it's a big school, like any big school, there's gonna be all kinds of Different.
18:41 activities different different scenes. Um But uh presumably a huge fraternity scene. probably a really big party scene. Did you guys avoid that because of your 'Cause of your interest in sports and faith, like did you w w I don't know, were you guys drinking and doing like I mean this is not not no judgment. I'm just curious, like were you
19:00 Doing beer bond games and stuff like that in college. No, I think the the answer to the question is not really. Um When we were in college kinda one of the things that we wanted to show
19:12 people is that you didn't necessarily have to go to parties and get wasted and drink a lot of alcohol to have fun and enjoy yourself in college and Personally, I had another outlet, my family ranch that I grew up on that was only about an hour and a half from college station and Honestly, I skipped a lot of weekends in college station to go hang out with my grandma and my grandpa.
19:33 Down there at our ranch. We didn't really feel like we were missing out, right? I mean I think Yes, it was the five of us, but we also had a lot of other friends that would come and our house was a huge hangout and you know it probably looked like we were having just a massive party sometimes because, you know, the police would come every once in a while'cause we had a lot of cars in front of our street, but people would just come and hang out and we just had you know, fun, sports, you know, goofy games going on at her house and there are just a lot of people that are hanging around. So
20:02 From what I understand. Tyler. Your sophomore year you move in with those guys. And Cody was also Living with you or not, not at that point.
20:11 I believe so. My sophomore year, their junior year. Yeah, that's right. Cody Kobe, Corey And me all lived in a house together.
20:20 And Garrett who would become also part he did not live with you, he lived like down the street. Yeah, he couldn't live with us, he was too clean. Our dishwasher and sink was too messy for him. So all right, so this is your kinda group house. You y'all were students, so you had to study. And but you also Take me inside that house. Are you playing video games all the time? What were you doing in there?
20:41 There was a few video games, there was a lot of made up games. Hustle ball. Yeah, I mean we we had like these really ugly doors. This house was I don't even know when it was built. It was probably built in the seventies. It had like these very like Star Trek shaped doors that were just like very rounded and
20:58 one of them was kind of across from the kitchen opening and we just ended up turning them into like hockey goals. And so we would just stuff pillows in, you know. pants and shirts for the goalies and play hockey in the living room. We had a mini hoop in the living room that we played Basketball. made up a bunch of games outside. I mean we we were just always competing. We were always creating ways to
21:19 Have fun and We were never short on ideas, I guess, for things to do. So you guys were like Big boys, basically. My I'm and this is not uh again, yeah, I'm this is not a judgment. This is like'cause I think about my boys from a very early age they would like take socks and roll'em up and play hockey in our living room. or baseball.
21:40 Like they would just throw a a stuffed sock at the other one with the plastic bat and just and my wife would be like, What are you guys doing? And e eventually we just we all understood. That's just what they were doing. But you guys were like nineteen, twenty years old and you you were doing this at your college group house. Yeah, absolutely. And still doing it.
21:59 I mean You would do things like you'd have two of you just sitting on a sofa and one person would throw a football in between and like Whoever caught it would like try to r wrestle it away from the other person, I mean, right, like you were like doing that kind of stuff. Yep, that was Hustle Ball. Great game. Um
22:16 I think that one may have cost us a T V at one point and I think a hole in the drywall. I had to ask my sister where the library was my senior year when she was a freshman, unfortunately, when I was forced to study for a class that I really needed to pass to graduate, so that was a yeah that was a humbling moment too. Alright, so as the story goes that I've read Um at a certain point in in this house you decide let's buy a basketball hoop. Like one of those hoops that is a standalone basketball hoop, right? That you like put sand or water in the bottom to weigh it down.
22:53 Yep, it was a uh plastic backboard basketball goal from Academy. Like Garrett and I went and bought and we didn't really have a great driveway or any concrete to play basketball on, so we just stuck it in the backyard and we would make up shooting games or just have free throw competitions and We were getting ready to go to lunch one day and I went to the corner of the yard and I was like, Hey if I make this, you're buying my lunch and he's like, Okay, whatever. That's right. Kai is pretty known. at least back in the day for creating what we all call one sided bets. So for example, I walk into the back yard one day, college house, and Ty has a knife in his pocket, right? Grew up on a ranch, always has a knife with him and he said, Hey, I bet I can throw this knife and stick it in that tree all the way across the back yard, you know, thirty yards. And if I do, you owe me ten bucks.
23:37 Well there's no if I don't, I owe you ten bucks. It's just one sided. And so, you know, classic. Me I'm like sure, whatever. And he does it, sticks in the tree. So it was that situation just basketball version that kinda started everything, ties in the back yard, and he looks at Garrett and he says, Hey, if I make the shot, you owe me a Jimmy John sandwich. And he's kinda standing in the corner and tosses up a hook shot, swish O'Dray now. Do they go to lunch?
24:01 And they get back and uh a camera gets involved and we start filming everything. But how does it so so I understand you got the hoop, right? But What first of all, what kind of cam like was it an iPhone camera? Was it like a video camera? Who decided to to to start filming those shots that day?
24:20 It was a picture camera on video mode and I cannot say that more clearly we are talking about it was like a little compact digital camera. One of the ones where Where you turn it on and the you know, the middle lens goes and kinda pokes out towards the front. I mean very small. And To be honest. We've never really been able to remember who exactly busted out the camera. I think my gut.
24:43 is that Ty made that first shot. and Garrett, you know, had to buy him lunch and we wanted to show the other guys when they got back. And it was kind of a, you know, keep everyone honest, make sure they pay their bets, and also show the guys'cause it was a funny story. And uh You just held the camera and would like
24:59 Start filming Tyler or or or each other or what? It started with recreating that shot with Tyler and Garrett, so Tyler goes in the corner, does his hook shot, and I think the dynamic shifted when we saw it on camera. I know that's silly to say, but when we are looking through, you know, playing it back on the camera, it just has a different vibe, right? And especially when you've never done this kind of thing before, it just looks fun to try and do again. And so it started with that shot for Ty, but then someone else said, Hey, I want a shot, and someone goes, you know, across the fence and throws it, or one of the guys climbed on the roof, you know, or someone does a bounce shot off the chimney, and we were just having fun in our back yard. I guess eventually, like what, you you had a friend of yours
25:41 Sean. Actually. Like do a proper film. Of like like really actually tr try to make cool films of this? No. So Sean was so originally DP had six members, so Sean was One of the other guys that lived with us at the house, and me and him were in the back yard.
25:58 originally when we decided like hey we need like a beginning to this video of these trick shots and so we had two chairs set up, like lawn chairs, in the back yard that were sitting in the middle of the yard. He put the camera on the railing'cause obviously we didn't have a cameraman or anything like that. And when he set it up he went around and looked, you know, on the back side of the camera on the little through the little viewfinder, and he said, Oh, dude Perfect. It's already in frame, like everything's good to go, like it's centered up.
26:26 Nice. And so we went around and it was already recording at that point, so he came round and sat down next to me and we recorded a Terrible intro where we named it like Backyard Stuntman. And when we went back and listened to the original audio. We just thought it was funny the way that he said dude perfect and so we ended up
26:43 Like I guess kind of adopting that as the title of the video. It says Dude Perfect. Yep. And that original Dude Perfect audio. is still in all the videos. Alright. So
26:55 April eighth. two thousand nine. You guys recorded a video. Which you decide to upload to YouTube. And this is still like
27:04 Pretty early YouTube days. Like Two and a half, three years into YouTube. Yeah, very early. First of all, what was the what did the video show? Describe the video. So we basically put together a video of us doing the shots in the back yard, right? Picture, you know, music.
27:19 And us doing different shots with, you know, the occasional celebration in between. Don't picture the space jam music as the soundtrack because that was the original one and we had our first lesson in music copyright issues. You use the space jam music'cause you're like, Yeah, of course, but you obviously were college students and bozo, so you didn't know that you can't do that. Exactly. So I was the only one with a YouTube channel at the time. I was also the only one that knew anything about video editing. I had taken one class in high school and so I bust open iMovie on my Apple laptop and put the footage in, throw obviously one of my favorite songs at the time, Space Jam, and put that behind it. And very quickly after we load the video, uh like Tyler said, you know, this video has been banned worldwide was the error message we got back and we learned that you can't just use someone else's music. Right. And so then we actually called one of Cody's buddies who lived down the street and And he had happened to just be there actually the week before handing out his demo CD for their group's, you know, recent kind of launch of their music career. And one of the songs on it was awesome. And it was a what kind of what kind of music was it like?
28:26 Rock. Hip hop, like So everyone should go look it up, shout out Manic Bloom, and the song that we used was Running From the Scene. And just to be clear, because you can see this video obviously still available, um and it's like there's a shot of like one of you guys like throwing a ball off the chimney and then it going into the basket and you know, throwing the ball from a l a distance.
28:50 And the idea was Let's just put this up on YouTube and see what happens. We wanted to share it with family and friends was really the main reason. I had kind of had in the back of my mind a kind of bucket list idea of at some point in my life I would love to put up a video on this new thing called YouTube that got a million views. That sounded fun to me. That wasn't the goal when we started filming, but I think after I had finished editing it We all shared it on our Facebook status was something along the lines of Hey guys, my buddies and I just made a fun basketball video. Uh we're trying to see if they can get a million views. Uh thanks for watching.
29:24 When we come back in just a moment. how Corey, Tyler, and the rest of the dudes began to grow an audience. by giving themselves harder and harder trick shots to perform. Stay with us.
29:42 I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's April 2009, and the guys from Dude Perfect have just released a video montage of a bunch of trick shots in their backyard. They've sent it out to everyone they know.
30:17 Hoping to eventually get one million views. The video definitely did not get a million views, it got probably maybe a hundred thousand, probably closer to fifty thousand views. That's unbelievable. How did that happen? I guess we had friends that had other friends, and people just shared it and it you know, it bounced around. The numbers were not you know, a when you think of a viral video, it wasn't that, but it did get passed around enough for someone to notice it. And the absolutely wild thing is that somehow
30:48 The very next day I'm laying in bed, you know, probably sleeping you know late like like you would imagine in college, and I wake up to my phone buzzing and I pick it up groggily, and it's some lady who said, Hey, I'm a producer at Good Morning America, and we wanted to play you guys' video today, is that okay? So of course I'm like Wait, what is happening? How do they have my phone number? Still don't know how they got my number to this day, but of course I you know said, Let me pray about it, yes. And uh run around the house screaming and telling the guys, you know, Hey, we're about to be on Good Morning America. Did they want to interview you too or just play your video? They did. Sore subject. Yeah. They said, Hey, we would love for Diane Sorrier to ask you guys some live questions while the footage runs. And so we all huddled together in the living room and they've got us, you know, on the cell phone and we're about to record and kind of do a you know
31:34 Kind of live hit. Correct. There was audio. There was no way for us to to you know shoot a video feed in there at that point. But we're we're there and we are ready and we are ready for our phone to ring and you know, we'd given them our number and they said, Hey we're about to call you guys, you'll see it on TV, but you know, all you have to do is answer our questions. So we are sitting there, you know, salivating, ready to do this interview, and for whatever reason they never called us. But on camera you can see Diane Sawyer saying what was her phrase? We're trying to phone you guys. We're trying to phone you guys. And so we're like Well, you're not No, you're not. We're sitting here making a slight bass. Uh, but they showed the footage and obviously for you know five college guys it was it was kind of a fun fifteen minutes of the spotlight.
32:17 So they showed some of the video. You didn't a not ever get a chance at that point to talk to Diane Sawyer. But you have at this point. I haven't. Not yet. Diane, just waiting for your call. But it's on Good Morning America. After that first video and got attention,
32:32 Was there like a strategic like conversation like, Hey, let's do more of these or was it just like that was fun, maybe we'll make another one? Yeah, very much just like, Oh, that was cool. Like that I mean, that was the extent of our thoughts. Like, Oh, no way, that was awesome. It was that was cool, let's do it somewhere else is probably what we really thought, right. That was fun. Now let's take it out of our backyard, we'll drag that basketball goal somewhere else and do it again. And how long did it take you to make a second video? Uh a month, maybe? Where did we go for our second one, Ty? Was it at the ranch? Yeah, the ranch that I was talking about that I would go to. That was my uh my grandpa's place. So we did our second video at the ranch and
33:07 You know, for us back at the time it was where can we do a basketball shot. That was all we were thinking about. Right. So Tyler had a good water tower, for example. It wasn't a water tower, it was a feed tower, but to a city boy from Houston it looks like a water tower. I am a city boy. Uh so he you know, he goes up and you know sits on top of this thing and does a hook shot down into the goal and we just wanted to change environments and mix it up. First try by the way. You're still making some videos, but this is just a a kind of a fun thing you're doing as college students. But in the fall of 2009. I guess you have your second really big kind of moment, which was You decide to try and make the world's longest
33:48 basketball shot and Tyler, you were you were gonna be the one to do this. What tell me what The idea of this was. So I think at this point it was like okay, well How are we going to outdo people's expectations now because now we've done the backyard video, now we'd done the ranch edition, so they'd already seen
34:07 basketball trick shots taken out of, you know, a traditional environment. And so we were I think I was in the car with Kobe and we were driving to campus. And we drove by Kyle Field, Texas AMs football stadium. And
34:22 I was like, we need to get in the stadium. We need to do the world's longest basketball shot. I was like, that would be something that people would watch, and the twins were communication majors, so I told Kobe I was like, Hey, if you get us in that stadium. I will throw a ball from the third deck, and I will make the shot. So he sent some emaund and I have no idea why, but somebody felt good about unlocking Kyle Field for us and giving us free reign of the stadium. And you by the way, and you brought your basketball hoop there?
34:52 Oh yeah, yeah, we brought our portable basketball hoop. This is the eighty dollar basketball hoop that you bought? It was seventy. Okay. Yeah. I think it was seventy. So you would just like load it into a truck and drag it there? That was pretty typical for us to load it up in the back of one of our trucks in college station and go drive it around. So somebody gave you permission to go onto the field. At Texas AM. And where did you place the Basketball hoop.
35:14 Uh, the basketball goal was on the right on the other side of the track in between the track and the football field. Okay. And we only had four basketballs at the time. We had recruited A few buddies to go up there and help us rebound because we obviously knew it would take more than one shot to get. And this is a huge stadium, but right? This is like conceitwise. Uh more than that I think at the time. I think it's closer to eighty five thousand probably. Well. And so
35:43 First I went up to the second deck'cause I I honestly I didn't know how far I'd be able to throw it off the top. I didn't know how far the ball would go. And so I went to the second deck and threw a ball off as hard as I could. And it sailed over the goal onto the football field. Wow. And at that point I was like We can do this. Like we can go to the top of the stadium and I am I am physically capable of throwing it far enough. to make the shot and that was all we needed to know. Cause w we would have stayed there as long as it took to get the shot.
36:10 And you brought one camera with you or did you bring more than one? Because you needed to film you and the basket and the Right the shot. We had upgraded to two. cameras at this point and I think we had made the massive improvement of going from not just one picture camera to video mode to a second actual camcorder, the type that looks like kind of a cylinder that you put your hand through the little strap and your index finger on the top you can zoom. I think we borrowed that from a buddy, so we were feeling extremely fancy.
36:39 And was either camera static? Or were they gonna m track the shot? Both handheld. We could not afford to have a camera on a tripod that got hit by a basketball goal. It would have buried the whole company. Got it. Okay. How far were you from the basketball hoop? If I had to guess I'd say it was like sixty yards, so you know, a hundred and eighty feet, something like that.
36:57 That's a basketball, it's not a football. Different aerodynamics. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, a lot harder to throw. Um, all right, so you get up to the third deck. Oh, the rest of the dudes At this point. With six people, the rest of you guys are on the field or
37:09 In different parts of the stadium. Kobe was up top with me filming. Okay. And Corey, you were on the field? I was on the field. I don't think I was holding a camera at that point. I was standing right by the goal. Right. And but you were gonna be the video editor, so I'm assuming you were the director.
37:24 I don't think we would have talked about it. You're thinking way too way too far ahead of where we were at. I'm over intellectualizing this. I got you. You know what? I like it, guy. Yes, I was the director. Okay. Alright, so so you go up there, Tyler And uh tell me what you do. So we start throwing basketballs. We had a few members of the Tech Saiyan basketball team that had kinda they were kinda funneling out of practice to come watch and we had kind of a little gallery going ended up popping one of our basketballs. I think it hit like a bench or something down below on the field. So we were down to three basketballs now at this point. And It's a little bit of a slow process, obviously, in getting three basketballs all the way back up to the top of a stadium.
38:06 But we'd have somebody on the first deck that the guys on the field would throw to, the guy on the first deck would throw it to the guy on the second deck, the guy on the second deck would throw it up to the third deck. The problem was if somebody in the relay chain threw the ball up, but didn't throw it up quite high enough, it would bounce all the way back down. So it was a tricky tree situation. Elevators became our best friends as we move forward with this uh company. And um We know what happens in the end, that we know you made the shot, but before you get there... How many sh I mean, I can't imagine how many shots you had to shoot.
38:36 Before that. You got one that went in. Yeah, I would say if it's probably not as many shots as you would think, especially with only three basketballs'cause you know, after you shoot three basketballs it probably takes a good five minutes to get everything back up top and reset. So it was only uh an hour and a half, two hours of shooting. And so it
38:57 It didn't take too long to to make the shot. Even an hour and a half, I mean that sounds like it's amazing that you made it in an hour and a half, but that's still a long time. You know, it's a lot of like, okay, this didn't work, let's get the balls back up. Oh. Nope, didn't work, let's get the balls back up to him, like you must have been convinced that you would eventually make it. Yeah. I mean we w like I said, when I threw the ball off the second deck and I knew that we were capable of doing it, we would have been there a week if we had to. And you gotta remember every once in a while the ball would would come really close, right? It would hit the back iron.
39:30 you know, hit the rim and at that point you're like oh I'm staying until as long as it takes, like I'm not giving up on this. we always liken it to a playing battleship, like If you just keep guessing and keep throwing enough. Then it's gonna go in at some point. Like it has to. Like the ball can only go so many places. And so as long as you're willing to put in the reps.
39:48 Any trick shot theoretically is possible. But sometimes like there may be Two million places where a ball could land. And you can't. throw it two million times because you just did time it wrapped.
40:00 I mean I guess you're ca kinda calibrating your throw and you you're there's muscle memory and you're feeling it and you're trying to make tiny adjustments, but we're humans, we're not robots, right? We We can't be as perfect as a robot, but you're kind of feeling that and just Making tiny adjustments hoping
40:17 But Everything kinda goes your way at some point. I think this is where Ty being a quarterback really came into play, right?'Cause you just said it and what you just said is is the answer, right? It's making adjustments. So goes in. And how did you react?
40:31 Oh Uh, we lost our minds. I mean I think that's what a lot of people gravitate towards too is especially at the beginning was seeing the celebrations and the excitement and the joy And It's just that like purilation of not only is it over, but you accomplish what you set out to do.
40:52 So You put this out on The YouTube channel on Core's YouTube channel. And I'm assuming you wrote, Hey, watch us do the world's longest basketball shot and Did it just go crazy overnight?
41:05 This was a simpler video in a sense, right? So everything we done up until this probably three or four videos had been, you know, what someone would probably call a montage. Almost felt like a music video. Multiple shots. Music behind it. all spliced together. This one we wanted to try something different, and obviously we didn't film multiple shots in the stadium, we just did this one. And so in our heads we're like Man, we got this. This is gonna be one super shareable clip. It's gonna be awesome. And it's funny, we put it up and we were expecting this like instant reaction. People were gonna go crazy over it and we put it up and and for a while it just kinda went flat. That's a mate,'cause this was
41:40 And then s I mean, anyone can watch it. It's it totally nuts. And for whatever reason, yep. People didn't didn't pick it up at first. So What happened? How did it get attention?
41:51 So it was probably three days later. And you know, we were all split up. I think maybe we had done the shot. right before uh some sort of vacation, maybe there is a break in in our schedule. And so I remember my brother and I hopped on a plane to North Carolina with our family. My grandparents lived in North Carolina, and so we hop on the plane and I mean I was like literally thinking about how sad I was about the fact that that cool video we had shot recently didn't do well and you know, whatever, let's just go on vacation and not worry about it. And my brother and I hop on this plane and we're flying and it's about a two hour flight and so as we land
42:25 We flip our you know, my phone back off airplane mode, and all of a sudden my phone just starts vibrating like I'd never seen mine or anyone else's. Do before and I mean I thought it was uh broken. And so you know, finally the screen kinda slows down enough for me to read a a text message or two, and what people had said was something to the effect of Hey guys, your most recent video has two million views and it was shared on Yahoo's homepage. And so that turned out to be what had happened. Yahoo's homepage, which I don't know if you remember, but that was like the spot. It was a thing. Yeah, people that was people's homepage.
43:01 Oh, it's a life changer for people. Yep. And so it turned out honestly to be the same thing for us, it had been shared as the main kinda, you know, clickable thing on Yahoo's homepage, and about two hours it had gotten about two million views. And because this one was so shareable, it just instantly went bananas. And not only was did it get a lot of views, but it got picked up by SportsCenter and every sports talk show you can imagine, and every morning show and and night show, and like we landed in in North Carolina and went to um you know somewhere to eat. And you know, obviously we're texting each other and and laughing about how crazy this is, but we walk in to eat somewhere and I look up on the TV and and there we are. Wow And that was that was the first time that something like that had ever happened. You're looking at the TV's th like they're probably probably playing sports center and you're on it. Yep, we're just sitting there at a at a burger place and look up at the screen and you know, they're playing it over and over and and people in the restaurant are pointing at it and it was just one of those like wow moments. It was pretty cool.
44:01 A hundred percent. Yeah, that's what everybody was saying, I think. Yeah, I think Carmelo Anthony was the one who was on the uh top ten desk at the time when the Kyle Field shot. Yep.
44:12 was blowing up and he was the one they asked and they were like Carmelo, is this real? And he was like, No way. Not a chance. Wow. Were you initially kinda sad about that? Like oh my God, it's not fake. We Did you feel bad when people are saying that? there was a little bit of pride of like, Hey, come on people, like we're capable about this. You know, Ty's Ty's an athlete, he can do this. This is this is real. Yeah. But
44:33 But there was also a piece where we were like, Hey, if that's what it takes for people to talk about it, you know, at this uh magnitude, you know, go for it. Uh I mean there's like Corey said, there's definitely a part of you that's like Like why would you not believe us? But then it was also just a testament to Like look what we pulled off. Like there's professional athletes. that are out there saying this can't be done and we just did it.
44:55 I love that. I mean it's so it's it makes total sense'cause if you did fake it And people said it was fake. then you might have felt bad'cause you're like, Oh, they found us out. Yeah, well even going back to the first video, that was a decision that we actually had to make very early on because we had a shot in the original backyard video, the first one we ever uploaded.
45:13 it hit just in front of the rim, but you know, hit the net, looked like a swish. And we were like, we could totally put this in the video. And literally no one would question it. And this conversation came up and we just said, Like look, if we If we are truly gonna
45:30 say that everything we do is real, then we can't have one fake shot. Or we lose all credibility. With then it's like okay, well if you faked that one, then what else did you fake? And so we decided from that point on anything that we do is gonna be one hundred percent real, one hundred percent authentic, and this is gonna be What Dude Perfect represents going forward. Alright, you guys get all this attention for this video.
45:53 And clear the gears in your head start to turn, thinking maybe there's something bigger here,'cause that year you actually set up an LLC, you you filed the paperwork to set up Dude Perfect L C. Who who came up with who went to the team Let's just like register a business here. I think it was right after that shot had happened and that video had had done pretty well. Uh my brother and I were back home with our family and it was right around the masters, I mean, I remember, uh, and Coby and I were were kinda sitting on the couch watching the golf tournament and Kobe looked at me and he said, You know, we should probably see if dudeperfect dot com is available.
46:29 Like if we're gonna go for this thing, we should maybe make it official. And so he logged on to whatever domain company and for nine ninety nine we snagged dudeperfect.com. Yep. And so I think that was it kinda solidified it in our minds as like, Okay, this is a thing. All right. You're still in college, you're still college students And I guess you get contacted by YouTube, right, at this point. This is two thousand nine, they're like, Hey Do you guys wanna
46:52 be a U two partner, like is that what they asked? I think so. It's changed over time kind of how that partnership program works. Now it's a little more automated if you there's some very low threshold if you are able to achieve X amount of views. then you can start to advertise against your stuff and and make ad senses. So Google owns YouTube, right? So it's Google AdSense is kind of the the piece that people make money on. And so I think back then it was you had to have X amount of followers or X amount of views, but then YouTube itself would kind of contact you and say, Do you want to opt in to be able to advertise. So we did. Yeah. But of course, I mean we are talking almost no money whatsoever. I think it was probably four or five videos in, uh Ty comes running into the to the living room at some point. This is when we're still at college. And he said, Guys, we've officially made it. I think we just made collectively enough money to buy a sandwich. Technically we had each made one cent, but I s I had the incredible foresight to say one day
47:49 We will each be able to take this money that we made from people watching our videos and we will be able to go buy a sandwich with it. Yeah. That's what it was. It does not that you don't get paid that much money. Well, especially back then. It was just so early. There weren't the type of, you know, demand That there is today from the advertiser side. Alright, so you've got this LLC.
48:13 But th this was like still you know, early days, right? And so and you guys are in college But um presumably you kept kept making videos. What was the cadence at that point after that that you know, that shot that you make in the stadium. Um there's a demand, so did you guys say, you know, we gotta do this every week or we gotta do this every month, or what what did you
48:33 What did you think? I don't think there was a cadence even at that point. I think it was still so early on. even at that point we still had no intention of like, Oh man, well if we Play our cards right, you know, this could be huge. I mean we were s I guess
48:48 a little bit small minded and and didn't see like the big picture until a lot later down the road. This is chill just super fun, but you guys were getting attention, like the m you know, media outlets were interested in in you. I mean you were a bunch of college kids making these these cool fun videos, so Presumably you were sort of seen as a novelty act, or just like right, something like that at the time. Game is very much like the trick shot guys. I mean that's what people labeled us as is oh those are the basketball trick shot guys that are doing this. And then we said, Oh, we're gonna shake that up and then we started throwing footballs.
49:21 Really diversified. Um I read that in like Two thousand ten. You got a corporate sponsor GMC.
49:28 that came aboard, which sounds that may sound to a lot of people like oh my gosh, you got a corporate sponsor, but oftentimes it's like, hey, we'll give you ten thousand dollars to make a video and we wanna put our our logo on it, right? I mean that's that's what that Probably something like that meant at the time. Yeah, I mean you're not far off, so GMC calls and they wanted us to do
49:49 First of all, just the fact that somebody wanted to pay us to make a video like that was mind blowing to us. We were like, we are scamming these people. And so we show up Uh, I think it was down around Austin. Yep. And they had like a couple of uh I guess there was like a few different videos that we were gonna try and do that we were gonna post on our YouTube channel and then they were gonna use as
50:11 uh NBA Finals commercial and then they were gonna use another one during the World Cup as a commercial. And so we show up to this place in Austin that we were doing the airplane shot. You were going to be in a single engine airplane flying over a basketball hoop.
50:27 That's right. They basically asked us, Hey guys, if y'all could attempt any type of shot, what would it be? And just off the cuff we throw out, Oh, I mean, we'd love to make a shot out of an airplane and so like Ty said, then you know, the I've got dotted and the T's got cross and all of a sudden we roll up in a van to Austin and there's this huge tent with at least fifty to a hundred cars. And we kind of pull up and it's foggy in the morning and you know, we're all looking around. I must be having a wedding or something out here. God, this is a crazy event. Like, man, it's early for all these people to be out here. That's weird. And we walk in and as soon as we walk inside the flap of the tent, people start looking at us and clapping. And we're like Oh my gosh, they're here for us.
51:08 The production crew. That was more than than a a flip camera on video mode. Oh my god. And there was a real airplane. Oh yeah. Sitting out in the field just waiting for us. Like a crop duster, like a low flying airplane?
51:22 It wasn't a crop duster, it was just a Hyper Cub yellow. And so the idea was you would have a basketball hoop. in a middle of a field and you would fly low over it. And Tyler, you were the one who was gonna take the shot. Yep, that was the concept.
51:35 How'd you do that? What'd you do? So I get up in this plane and I'm talking to the GM C guys and they're like, Hey, you know, just keep in mind like we don't wanna hit the truck because the serial number on this truck was like zero zero zero zero zero zero four. And it's like you know, we've only got one of these in the US, the other two are off somewhere else, and the other one's like getting finalized or whatever. So they're like, hey, don't, you know, whatever you do, don't hit the windshield or the hood and put like a massive dent in this truck that we only have one of So the truck was sitting probably the I don't know.
52:07 thirty feet in front of the basketball goal where it could be seen in the camera. Okay. And so I'm like, that's fine. That's like it's way far away from the goal. I'm not gonna hit the the truck or whatever, but thanks for like the vote of confidence to put that in my mind right before I go up in the plane. And so we get up in this plane and they load uh probably there wasn't a lot of room. They could only put like one bag of basketballs in the back of this plane. Which is like 'Cause you're just gonna keep go flying around and flying around until you make it, okay.
52:34 And uh I just remember like once we got up in the air and we kinda go for this first like Not getting the shot yet, but I look down and I'm like Oh my gosh, they moved the truck right underneath the goal. I'm like, what are they doing?
52:48 And they they they hadn't moved the truck at all. It just looked a lot closer to the goal from up in the air than it was, and so I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is gonna be W like I I have no control over where this goes. I've never dropped a ball out of a plane, like who knows where this thing is going. And so we come around for the first pass And it was kinda starting to rain. I remember when I put my hands out the window I was like oh gosh, that kinda hurts because The rain was like spitting behind the propeller and it just felt like a bunch of needles going into my hands when I stuck my hands out the window to drop the ball.
53:20 So I we are coming around, I'm like, this is the airplane shot. This is the first one we ever take. I drop the ball out of the plane, out of the side of the plane. And We're moving so fast that I can't really tell where the ball goes. After I drop it. And the guys come on the radio.
53:36 on the walkie-talkie, and I could just tell like everyone went from this like super excited, like this is gonna be incredible. I can't believe we're gonna do a shot out of an airplane too. This is most likely never gonna happen'cause it was about like a hundred and fifty feet past the goal. Like the worst miss probably in the history of Dude Perfect to that point. Furthest from the goal, like not even close. Oh my goodness. You could just tell the energy was just like way down at that point. Yeah.
54:04 So you tie you're up in the plane. Um you and you're trying to make the shot from from like a hundred plus feet up and uh and Cory presumably here on the ground. W what was going on there? So I'm down at the bottom at this point and the crew, like Ty said, is is just deflated. I mean, this is gonna be a big time TV commercial. They're all dial in ready to go, and that first shot missed by, you know, like Tyler said, a couple hundred feet, if not, you know, eighty yards. I mean it was like insane. There were some cows way far away and the ball almost hit a cow and I'm like Oh gosh, this is about to be the most embarrassing day of our lives.
54:37 So at this point I'm like, Okay, well that's fine. It was you know, I'm just gonna drop the ball earlier was like the only thought I had at this but it was the only thing I thought I could do. Like No control over this. I just gotta drop it earlier. And I'm like, okay, here we go, you know, round two, but I'm like, Golly, this is taking forever because
54:55 To reset the shot. The pilot had to take like a pretty huge loop to get back around and so I'm just picturing how long like the Kyle Field shot took to get rebounds. Well this was like I mean, after we shot the ball, it was another like three minutes just to get back around to a point where we were even able to attempt another shot. So now I'm starting to do the math in my head like
55:17 How many uh what am I gonna get like? You know. thirty shots at this before it's sunset. You're probably stressed out, by the way,'cause it's like a professional crew of people and these are like hardened experienced production people, I'm sure you must have felt like oh God, I don't think they
55:34 Realize how how how long it's gonna take. For sure. And we'd never had people waiting on us either to like film us. Like it was always just us. I didn't care if the other guys had to you know, sit down on the at the ground at Kyle Field and throw up a you know, a couple more rounds of rebounds. And so we come around for the second pass finally after what felt like forever, and I'm like, Okay, well I'm just gonna drop it earlier and see what happens. It's probably going straight through the windshield at the No.
55:58 GMC Denali pickup drop. And I dropped the ball and it looked like it was like pretty good timing, but you know the plane keeps going so I can't really see it. And all of a sudden like the radio, all I hear is just Yeah.
56:17 Wow. Well w I I was I I told the pilot I was like I think I just made it. We come back in just a moment. how Tyler, Corey, and the rest of the team keep Dude Perfect going. while keeping their day jobs.
56:34 A decision that at first nearly runs them into the ground. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2010 and Tyler is up in an airplane for Dude Perfect's first sponsored video. And he can't quite tell from up in the air, but
57:11 It looks like his second attempt. has actually gone in. It took us like five minutes to actually confirm. Okay, we did make it because nobody could even talk at that point. Wow. And it was uh I mean that had to be like one of the most like surreal moments.
57:28 in D P history as far as like just not expecting a shot to happen and then second try out of an airplane swished it. Wow. It was just like a complete opposite. emotion from after that first shot. I mean you guys or still in college. Some of you graduated'cause I think Tyler you you would need you'd have another year of college, right? Yep. And so this is May of two thousand ten. You were in
57:52 Commercials for the World Cup for the NBA finals Uh at that point I have to assume that people at least at on campus knew knew you guys, knew who you were. Yeah, I think that my senior year was a little bit different in the fact that people started to recognize us around campus and you know, when the guys would come back in town to film something and we'd have a basketball goal in the back of the truck, like everybody knew what we were going to do. They were like, Oh, nice dude, perfect's going to film something. And you know, people in in our classes and stuff would know and they had seen the videos and
58:21 So there was a little bit of a a small, I guess, celebrity status to it, but even then it still wasn't like a major thing at that point. Corey, you and Cody and Garrett You guys graduate. Right. And co and Kobe too.
58:35 And you went off. to g like get a job, like a real job, right? Well, so again, five of us and three of the guys, not Coby and I, were either getting married or had already gotten married by the end of school. And so we basically had to, you know, kinda make a decision on how we were gonna handle the continuing Dude Perfect stuff. And so my brother and I decided to move back to Austin, which is where our parents were living at the time. And so we lived at at their house with them and took the the free option so that we could work on Dude Perfect during the week. 'Cause this was not sustainable. You were not
59:06 Making you could not make a living off of this. Yeah, not even remotely. So we had gotten paid by GMC and that was essentially it. We'd made some ad money, but you know, it's probably sandwich money at that point. And you know, that was cool, and that definitely was like opened our minds to the fact that this could be a real job. And so I think that gave us enough motivation to try and keep it going after school, but we didn't know how it was gonna work. And so my brother and I kinda took the mantle of the weekly stuff. Kobe did a lot of the business calls And then I did a lot of the editing or all the editing at that point. Yeah, we you know, especially once that that GM C thing happened, I think GM C or the production company probably is who really won the award for that and it turned out to be that we didn't scam them, but in in some sense, right, you know, they got a great deal um from us because it just got a ton of publicity. It was a great
59:59 Great video. Over a billion impressions on that campaign, I remember. That's exactly right. And so that production company probably got a ton of business. I think they probably did. And so we started getting calls from from different groups and you know agencies and production companies and brands. And so we just realized that's this is a whole thing. Like this is a world that is available to us. And so Coby Field did a lot of that stuff and then I was editing everything. And so we lived at our house while the other guys And their wives at this point, you know, had real jobs. And and you would just gather every week from different like'cause you're in Austin. Uh, Tyler, you were in college station. Where were the other guys?
1:00:34 They were up in Dallas, so I mean at this point, not like we had a lot of brand deals or opportunities anyways, but when we did, we would just tell companies that we were We were so busy with speaking engagements and things like that during the week that if they wanted to do a branded dude perfect video, it would have to be on a Saturday. And you know, the brands are like What? Like what there's no way you're that busy during the week we're like, Yeah, yeah, it's gonna have to be uh Saturday when in reality I was still in school and and the other guys were working jobs. Like Garrett was an w working our an architecture firm and and you guys were working for your dad's church, Corey, right? You and your brother And I guess t Tyler, when you graduated the next year, like you went and worked for a landscaping company. Yeah, so I had done a internship at a landscaping company in Prosper and I went back to work there.
1:01:20 I was laying sod at the beginning on a maintenance crew and then uh eventually kind of oversaw like our residential department and a little bit of our commercial maintenance stuff. So let me understand this, Texas is a very big state. Yeah you guys will drive Once a week somewhere to a central location.
1:01:37 And film something? Well, I wish it was a central location. The reality was these guys were grounded here in kind of the Dallas area, right? And they're married and their their families are here, so Coby and I were at Austin and it is about a four hour drive. Yeah. So it's kind of Past that easy drive status to where it's like, uh this drive is pretty rough. But we probably drove it at least once, if not twice a week for four years. This was what kinda we we think of as absolute, you know, the grind years, no question. So you would leave super early in the morning on a Saturday or why do you leave on a Friday night? Yeah. Probably Saturday morning. And then you would film all weekend and then drive back on Sunday night? Exactly, drive back and then I would edit it. And so
1:02:19 You had to have a successful shot. Definitely, no question. Certainly felt like it. And meantime, you are thinking of new new kinda tricks and stunts to do, right?'Cause they had to be better than the previous one.
1:02:34 How do you beat an airplane? shot. Like Especially without a budget. It was tough to continue to try and outdo yourselves, right? I mean this is back when all we did were trick shots. And so the bar is It's simple, it's make it better than the previous video. And what that usually to people is farther or higher or something that just feels like a totally different concept.
1:02:54 I mean you guys were Um like You know, you got on Jimmy Kimmel, you were um you know, you were getting attention. Meantime, Ty, you're like bl like laying Sod. Monday to Friday. Yeah. Weed eating, laying sod, selling plants, all the above. Because you couldn't even though you were getting sponsors and attention.
1:03:13 It's a see, this is amazing to me. It was not It wasn't actually that much money to to make a sustainable business. That's right. Yeah. What explains that? I mean I'm try with all of the views you were getting and all was it just like you guys weren't asking for for enough? You were just kinda Or was it you just
1:03:31 I don't know, just the the the industry wasn't quite Mature yet? What what what explains that? I th I think it's closer to what you said, the industry just wasn't quite there. I mean, I think even at the time, Dude Perfect has always been kind of a premier brand. We were charging even back then what we felt like was top dollar for a YouTube group to be charging a brand to do a video. What would you charge a brand back in two thousand eleven to do a video for them? Gosh.
1:03:55 I know GMC, the very first original thing, and this was for a TV commercial, so this felt way bigger than a YouTube video, but this was kinda the first thing we ever heard, I think. They paid us fifty grand. And I mean that was it honestly was life changing because it made us feel like this was ten thousand bucks a person. Absolutely. And then we kinda learned about taxes and we were like oh that's just four thousand dollars a person. But that was the first number we'd really ever heard, and so I think we I think honestly the biggest thing was we had to split it with five guys and uh I just
1:04:24 That really carves into it pretty quickly. Yeah. It's like this was your side hustle'cause you had the full time job, but clearly You had the vision of making this your main hustle, not your side hustle. But
1:04:36 You guys were driving four hours back and forth from Dallas I think basically until two thousand fourteen. And From what I understand It got to the point where
1:04:48 Some of you were like I don't think I keep doing this. This is not Working. That's right. So we Cob and I were the ones driving four hours back and forth each time and and we were working on it during the week and so there came a point where we drove, you know, a handful of times in a row and we were working on a video all through the night, two nights in a row. And you know, I wasn't used to doing that even even coming out of college. And so for whatever reason, my body just broke. And so we were at one of Ty's buddy's ranches and I woke up in the morning after finally having, you know, gotten to sleep at, you know, whatever, seventy two hours or something.
1:05:21 And so I wake up and I go to brush my teeth in the morning and the water is just running down the right side of my face. And you know, I turn the light on and and look in the mirror and I thought it had a stroke because the right side of my face was was not functioning. And so I went and and you know tapped Kobe and woke him up And he drives me, you know, in the middle of nowhere, Texas, wherever we were at this ranch, and he drives me basically a hundred miles an hour towards the nearest hospital or emergency room that's probably thirty, forty-five minutes away. And so I get there and they tell me, you know, after doing some tests on me that I had what's called Bell's palsy. And it's basically kind of a a a paralysis of the face. They they still don't know exactly what causes it, but what they usually see is is stress and lack of sleep. And so they call it temporary. It took six full months for me to get a single twitch in my face back. Wow. And it's just a a practical example of how hard we really were going. And we would just do whatever it took to get that next video out and I to the point where we just broke. And so that's that's kind of me at this point. point emotionally four years in is like, you know, I'm looking at the guys when you know when we're meeting up one day, and I was like, guys, I I don't know if I can keep doing this.
1:06:30 Corey, were you Were you ever, even slightly? resentful of the other guys because you are also going home and editing this stuff. And that's a lot of work. Were you ever like, God, those you know, I gotta do all this work. Honestly, I don't know that I would have described it as resentful. I mean, sure. Did thoughts cross my mind of hey, these guys are not having to do dude perfect as much as I am? Sure. But the reality was they were working crazy hours with their other jobs. So we were both doing the same amount of of work hours wise, because they had full-time jobs during the week and we all had
1:07:03 D P during the weekend. So, you know, logically I couldn't really go there, but I think we were all so excited about what could be with Dude Perfect that we just powered through but it it hit a breaking point and for me it was the the kind of physical piece. And I guess. around like like twenty thirteen or or twenty fourteen maybe, some somewhere around there, there was kind of a turning point. Were you guys were or like some event for for March Madness and And Tyler, I guess you suddenly realized you had to make a decision. Like you had this this landscaping gig and you had to choose one job or the other.
1:07:36 Yep. I don't remember if it was the Houston Final Four or the Atlanta Final Four. But they they had flown out ahead of time because they needed to be there Friday. I was having to work. I flew out Friday night down there. And Saturday when we're all down there doing our event.
1:07:52 I got an email from my boss at the time and it said basically like hey, you can't miss any more Saturdays. Like if you know, if you're gonna work here I need you to be here Saturdays, so I remember I showed Garrett first. I think we were sitting on the plane headed back home. And I was like
1:08:09 Man, I I don't like I don't know what we're gonna do. Yeah. I mean, of course now looking back on it. Knowing what we know.
1:08:18 I would have thought you might have been Thinking. Yeah, I got that email and I thought You can take this email and shove it up your but that's not what you were thinking. Well, and we weren't in a place n not only would I I hope that wouldn't be my thought, but we were also just not in a place that could warrant a reaction like that. I think When we really looked at it, we were like, Okay, what if'cause Garrett had wanted to make a change at his architecture firm, I think, anyways, and Cody was looking at making a move and so
1:08:46 I knew I had to find something else if we were gonna continue dude perfect. And so I was like, What if this was in April, this was during the final four I was like, let's look and see what would happen if for the rest of the year, for the next, you know, eight months We just try dude perfect. And We had it figured up after doing all this research that we could each take home about eight thousand dollars the rest of the year.
1:09:08 And for some reason that we felt good about that. For some reason that was like, Okay, well we can totally do this till December And see what happens and so you just do it on Saturdays, so you you knew that you'd uh you could make eight thousand dollars each during the year. Yeah, it w it was still it wasn't supplementing the income that we were making at our other jobs at that point. And so it was definitely a ring. It was ramen money. Yeah, yeah, it was it was definitely ramen money. So, you know, we had to have that conversation with Not only our wives, but our in laws and you know, for me and Garrett and
1:09:38 Cody. We all had somebody else to take care of at that point. It wasn't just us, so you had kids. Yeah, I think I didn't have kids yet. I think Garrett may have just had his first kid. Uh which that's unfathomable to me now to think back to have a child and to think I'm gonna quit my architecture career because he had his masters and a pretty solid job and go into YouTube videos because this is this is cat video still. You know, for for the stage of YouTube. This is if you tell someone you're a YouTuber, it's you work in your basement. So for Kobe and I We you know
1:10:10 It was easy. We were still living with our family. Any money was enough for us. And you know, anything for us was gravy, and obviously at some point we wanted to make a little bit of money, but we were okay. And these guys were having to look at their, you know, father in laws in the eye and explain how they're gonna take care of their girl. And it was funny because for Kobe and I, we're like, great, thank goodness we can all, you know, kind try and do this together, for those guys, someone had to pull the parachute first. And so I remember listening to the guys, you know, after deciding this was gonna happen, and they kinda looked at each other and was like, Okay, cool, like I get that we're all gonna quit, but who's gonna quit first? Right, because you know, once you once you say that, you're you're burning that bridge realistically at that company. So it was kind of a funny uh conversation. All right, so it's mid two thousand fourteen. You guys all decide to go in. All in on this thing.
1:10:58 And you've gotta professionalize, right? I mean I'm assuming you've gotta like create some kind of infrastructure, at least some system to bring in incoming inquiries and And so I guess at this point what, do Tyler, your dad kinda helps out, uh decides you know, you guys decide he's gonna help you guys out? Yeah, when we first did the GMC
1:11:19 when they sent that proposal like as one of the first brands to ever work with us and we got a contract, we were like, What in the world? Like it's just like fifty pages. Like who's gonna read this? Yeah. And my dad being in sales and, you know being a good negotiator and stuff, we were just like, Well, let's just send it over to him and see what he says about it. And so That was kinda how that relationship started and what about camera work? Did you did you hire a professional Camera team or did you already have a team at that point? No, we sure didn't. I think we were probably still at the about the same cameras as we started with, to be totally honest. We may have upgraded one step, whatever
1:11:54 My big stipulation when we moved from Austin to Dallas was that I really needed some help on the editing side. So I told the guys, Hey, I will you know, uproot my life and leave all my friends and family and stuff over here. If you guys are cool with us taking a total leap of faith and not only all going full time, but being willing to to throw enough salary at somebody to where we can hire an editor to help me. So it was it was tricky because we didn't even know if we had enough money to make this whole thing make sense for us to begin with, but then we had to hire somebody, you know, on top of that. So it was tough, but it was definitely the right call, no question.
1:12:28 And when you decided to go all in How did you do'cause you got to do business development, you gotta get sponsors in, you gotta get revenue in. So how did that happen? How did you how did you start to bring Mm-hmm.
1:12:42 I don't know, maybe a month after going full time, we got a email from Nerf. Um, who has been one of our uh our longest partner that we've had. Uh, they have been since then, and so we had signed our First big nerf deal. to come out with dude perfect nerf products and do videos for them. And that was like our first big partnership. And that for us just kind of confirmed like, okay, like this is what we're supposed to be doing. Like this is a great first step in the right direction, going full time. We still didn't think that we needed an office, so For the first year we pretty much just met at like Panera or Corner Bakery or whatever coffee shop we could sit in and not order anything until they kicked us out.
1:13:24 And we got away with that for a while, but After some time obviously had to start like making more real business decisions, I guess, and financial expenses, like, okay, we do need an office if we're gonna hire somebody to edit our videos so they can have a place to sit there and work. And it was kind of a slow transition roll into all that stuff and just kind of a learn along the way process of what that looks like. So once you guys made that decision, you gave yourself like six to eight months, right, to see if it would work. Was there s I mean, you got the Nerf deal, so that was great, that was gonna be sustainable.
1:13:58 But then was it just like things started to just come in as you put more videos out, you got more attention, more stuff came in, it just became like a natural Kind of organic growth like that, or did you have to go out and hustle and get the work to you? It was still a hustle, but I think we also moved into our first office and office is overstating it. I mean it was a pretty fun space. It was like a strip mall, right? It was like a what
1:14:22 Two thousand or three thousand square foot or something like that. Correct. It was a public facing building. But it was a cool space, right? And so we knew we physically needed somewhere to office out of, but we didn't want it to be your typical, you know, cube farm. And so we made it as cool as we could and we built it out. in a cool way and it was it was very, you know, sporty on the inside and activity base and a basketball goal hanging on the wall and shuffleboard and ping pong tables and pool tables and a space that was very, you know, natural to film in and so I think when people Saw that. I think it was like, Oh, these guys are serious, like This is the first time we've ever seen anyone online basically create a space. And did you you were financing these videos essentially through your sponsorship, right? Because the videos, even if they were getting a lot of views
1:15:12 That was not your revenue model at the time. It was a consistent revenue model, right? I think that's the cool thing about the ad side is you can start to predict and get a little bit of a, you know, predictable cash flow there. So it helped. I would say we probably thought about it more so as our YouTube money, meaning the ads, we can pay for our bills, right? And then the sponsorship stuff, that's what can hopefully help us, you know, support our families. Did you guys you know, you gotta now it's a business and this isn't gonna be your livelihood and
1:15:42 You gotta really your quality the pressure on you is to make high quality videos because you've already been making high quality videos, so there's an expectation. You watch them, they look seamless, simple. 'Cause it's so hard to make them. I know that looking at it. But that does create creative tension in any environment, even in our environment, you know? I know you're all friends and stuff, but
1:16:03 In any kind of business pr arrangement, there's always gonna be tension. Yeah. Big big arguments between the five of you at at at certain points? I mean, we're brothers, right? Like we have known each other for fourteen, sixteen years at this point. So anything that you can imagine
1:16:18 with family, you know, with five brothers, that that's what's happened. So we've certainly you know, been upset at each other many times and that's a lot of people, that's a lot of cooks in the kitchen to try to agree and try to vote and so as you can imagine it gets messy. But I think we've all just We've aligned on the things that really matter, right? We've majored on the majors and minored on the minors. And so our you know, tent pole things, right? Quality and that people can trust everything we put out. Like those things continue to kinda guide what we do. And so I think as a group You know, we didn't have to convince each other about those things over and over again.
1:16:54 I think, you know, for us there's obviously been moments throughout the twelve years that have been extremely difficult and, you know, very confrontational and difficult moments. And I think the only reason that Dude Perfect is still a thing today is truly because of our faith. And I think You know, as five Christian guys, Jesus was all about loving people and forgiving people and serving people. And you get a lot of opportunities to do that when you have disagreements with your friends that you work with. And so we've definitely had our opportunities to do that. And I think Truly that is the only reason that Dude Perfect is still a thing twelve years later. Well on that point, right, and I I that makes a lot of sense. You can always circle back to this thing you share, which is in in your case it's your faith, and you can kind of lean on that to resolve things.
1:17:38 And I know we're talking about this more than normal'cause you guys don't really talk a lot about this on in the videos. Which I think is actually great. I mean, in the sense that you've got all kinds of kids and people watching and some people just They respect faith, but they don't want really not interested or don't want to hear about it. try to hide. Our main purpose for making the videos and any type of entertainment we do is to bring people together, right? I mean I think at the end of the day, you know, we've actually been talking about it recently. Our mission statement is to be the world's most trusted world class entertainment. So I think for us,
1:18:14 I don't think that we feel like it's necessary. You know, nor is it necessarily very entertaining to sit around and talk about our faith on videos, but it is the most important thing to us. So I think we put, you know, entertainment as the key piece of of our videos and if anyone digs, you know, at all, they can kinda see, you know, what we're really all about and we're happy to tell anyone that asks. You know We heard my my boys earlier in the conversation, um And that's how I learned about you through my boys,'cause I I'm not a
1:18:41 And It's really cool how they connect with what you do. And as I've gone down the rabbit hole of Dude Perfect, it's clear that You've a massive audience, probably your Primary audiences like
1:18:53 Boys. Right. Probably Between five and fifteen. Is that fair? That that's your biggest core audience?
1:19:00 I think that's definitely our biggest. I think we've been surprised over the years as we've started to transition out of just being the basketball trick shot guys, you know, now we've got The trick shot videos are probably our least popular series we have now, which is awesome. I mean, we love that. That's cool to see, you know, us try new things and they work, I guess. So they're they're well received by the audience. So now we've got the stereotypes and the battles and these are shows, these are I should mention these are like sketch shows, like stereotypes like have one where you all go to the beach and there's like stereotype of the person always gets sunburned and like the muscle guy and like That's what it is. Yep. We've just tried all these different series and it's cool to see our audience grow with us and especially like
1:19:36 me talk about some of these athletes and celebrities who we've been fortunate enough to meet And you know, on tour, we were we were shocked to see how many uh females were there. I mean, it was a good like I would say seventy, thirty, sixty, forty split between girls and boys that were coming to the to the tour in twenty nineteen. All right, here's the other thing that's happened to you guys. you be you've become really famous. I mean I I you know there are gonna be some people who listen to this who who haven't heard of you and but but just so they know. You have like a bigger YouTube channel than the NBA, than the NFL, than Ariana Garanda. I mean you've like
1:20:10 You guys are really famous. met like you you get recognized where wherever you go. How how is that Must change your life, right? You must get you probably can't walk through an airport terminal without getting stopped. It's I mean, there's no question it's drastically changed our personal lives. And again, something we didn't think about, right? I mean, when it started happening
1:20:31 A lot. Like people are recognizing us everywhere we go and not just as a group, but individually. It's tricky, I would say the large majority of the time it's a really positive experience. But at the same time, you know, we're we're regular people too, and so we'll be out at dinner and we're with our family and and our kids and we'll be, you know, tucked in the back of a booth at a Mexican restaurant, and then you'll have a family stand up and the dad We'll say something like, Hey, take a picture with our kids. You know and he's not really asking, he's kinda saying, Hey, do it, and you're stuck in the back of the booth, and if you take one picture, then everyone in the restaurant's gonna notice and you know, before you know it, you'll have a line. And it's not that we don't appreciate everyone in the restaurant that their kids know us or that their parents know us and that they want to take a picture, but obviously it just changes the whole dynamic.
1:21:14 Yeah. I think it just goes back to our faith of why we handle situations like we do. I mean, if it was purely from a selfish perspective, I think there would definitely be times when you walk out of the office and you're like, Man, the last thing I wanna do is go take more pictures. I'm trying to get home and see my own family. But At the end of the day, like
1:21:31 If you think about it, like You know, I may have twenty or thirty of those interactions in a day. I'm not gonna be able to remember the kids or family's names that I meet or anything like that, but that kid is probably gonna remember that experience for the rest of his life. But It's definitely a conscious decision that you have to make. that yes it may be inconvenient, it may be frustrating, you may have just come off of having an absolutely horrible day personally, but there you walk outside and there's a group of twenty people waiting to take a picture with you.
1:22:00 You've gotta decide in that moment, you know, how am I gonna handle this? Like th they they have no idea what's going on in your personal life. I mean they And they sh they they there's no way they they could. Yeah. You guys expanded to a live show. You've got
1:22:14 multi channel shows on YouTube. You're a media company now. What's the ambition? I mean What do you guys want this to be?'Cause it's
1:22:23 You know, some people might say, Oh, those are the trick shot guys, some people might say, Oh, those are the YouTube guys, some people might say, Oh, that's the those guys that do that live show Tell me. Tell me the vision. I mean the truth is I think we like all the things you just said, right? I think we wanna be relevant on all the platforms, right? Anything that's popular, we wanna have a presence there and and just continue to kinda shine our our light in in those different areas. And so we're we're trying to do a bunch of different things. We've got a movie that we're, you know, just starting to work on and so we're we're kinda trying to tackle it all and it's it's it kinda goes back to us being competitive guys, right? There's a piece of a piece of it that's the business side and we think that part is fun and
1:23:01 you know, just like any entrepreneur, we like growing the business. And then there's also a piece of us that, you know, no matter what we do, we're still competitive guys and we like to try and, you know, tackle some different areas. And if that means that, you know, we want to make a movie, then hey, let's try it. That's a completely new experience and you know, we wanna see it happen. How crazy would you thought if When you're in college. One of you guys was like We're gonna make
1:23:24 Uh really, really significant. business that's gonna generate a lot of money. out of That are these stupid.
1:23:31 Like things we're doing in our Go to Powers. I think if you had said that two years ago we would have thought it was crazy. I don't think you have to go back twelve years to when we were Back in college. But yeah, it was unfathomable. I mean, honestly, we could not have even wrapped our minds around it. Partly because that world didn't really exist. Right? I think kids now
1:23:49 your kids probably even grow up and one of their, you know, top things, hey what do you want to be when you grow up? Well I want to be a YouTuber.'Cause that's a thing. Yeah. And it was not a thing when we were growing up, and it was barely a thing at all when we were, you know, and the beginning stages of Do Perfect. Yeah, by the way, thanks for that. Now, and every time I ask my kids would you want to be they're not like I wanna be the president, like I wanna be a YouTuber. We have to apologize for that and uh we didn't start water bottle flipping, but we we definitely helped make it uh kind of a thing, so we apologize to teachers for that all the time. I'm sure that's you know endlessly frustrating to them. Yeah. How how much For both of you.
1:24:24 Tyler and Corey. How much of your success do you do you attribute to how hard you worked and Just a grind and how much do you think it has to do with luck? We are perfectionists, right? We all are, and we are all willing to put in that extra effort and whatever piece of the process you can imagine. I mean, just the other day as an example, we launched a new book recently, and so we did kind of a contest giveaway and we did this big film project in order to make it happen. And we put a lot of time and effort into it and we edited it. And we looked at it and we said, I don't like the way it looks. Like it's okay. No one would really bat an eye at it, but that's not the vision that we had and we we
1:25:00 Went. And we redid the whole thing. Right, so that's just so classic, dude perfect. We have this bar that I think is a lot higher than what most people imagine it would be, at least online. So on the hard work side, I mean I'm not gonna lie, like we you know we try hard, we take it seriously. It's the most fun thing ever, so we don't take it too seriously, but we take the opportunity that we have with it seriously. And you know, if we can spread a little bit of hope and joy in that sense, that's a huge win. How about you, Teller?
1:25:28 I mean there's no question that we've all put in a a lot of work, but I think we would still be putting in that work. I mean, I was putting in that work when I was doing landscaping. Our personalities have always been like the way we were raised is you know, you've got to work for or something. It's not just gonna be handed to you and so I think we tend to look at it maybe not so much
1:25:49 Uh lock, but more so that God has kinda blessed us with this platform for a reason and Even if it's just as simple as providing content for families to sit down and watch together. We hope at minimum like that's what we can provide for people and I don't tend to look at it as luck, but I think
1:26:08 It's been a huge blessing to be able to have a platform like that. I mean, it would be a waste if at the end of this it was like Oh, okay. Well we made some funny videos on this website called YouTube that may or may not be around in fifty years and
1:26:24 I think we all hope that there's a little bit more meaning and a little bit more purpose behind Do Perfect than that. When this is all said and done. That's Tyler Tone and Corey Cotton. Two of the five co-founders? Dude perfect.
1:26:39 Oh, and by the way Yes. I think we may have forgotten to ask just one more critical question. Uh Bram, you wanna you wanna take this one? Yeah. Have you ever scored an incredible trick shot, but it turns out you weren't recording?
1:26:53 We have, so I was like, Hey, well let me go to the front yard and see if I can Make this shot over the house into the backyard. And I was like, I'm just gonna go practice it and throw a few and I ended up making it and we were not filming and so we decided rule number one of trick shots, you're either filming or you're not filming. And I have a last question. Was that trick shop? Daddy has to do his job. Daddy has to do his job. Dad's gonna be out of a job soon, sounds like. Bye. Bye. Alright, see ya boys. Thanks for the question.
1:27:24 By the way, since we first ran this episode, they've announced plans to build new headquarters in Frisco, Texas, including a theme park. They were also featured in an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary called Dude Perfect, a very long shot, which is really awesome. I just saw it. And last year They broke the world record for the highest basketball shot again. This time with an eight hundred and
1:27:49 Fifty-six foot shot. Up of the Strat Tower. In Las Vegas. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter at guyRaz.com.
1:28:12 This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Ramteen Arablouti. It was edited by Neva Grant. with research help from Claire Mirashima. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, Chris Massini, Sam Paulson, Devin Schwartz, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening. how I built this.
What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 10 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.