Creator Spotlight: Doug DeMuro
You’re going to want to listen to today’s podcast. It’s with Chris Josephs who is a master of memes. He is behind popular meme accounts like the Nancy Pelosi tracker and created a top finance app thanks to memes.
Its a tactical discussion on how to build major buzz using memes for your product.
You can listen over here —> YouTube, Spotify, Apple.
This is a new monthly series I’m starting called Creator Spotlight, where I showcase a creator who’s building awesome communities & products once a month. You’ll be able to take away insights to supercharge your own audiences and products.
This month, it’s Doug DeMuro. Doug is a YouTuber in the automotive space—with 4.5 million YouTube subscribers. He used his audience to create Cars & Bids a car auction website that’s been a roaring rocketship: 10,000+ auctions completed, $230M+ value of cars sold, over 300k registered members. This week, he just snagged $37M from The Chernin Group to fund it. Pretty bonkers.
He’s the perfect example of how creators can develop successful products for their community and move off the creator treadmill.
More context on Doug: He’s instantly recognizable. A high pitched voice, quintessential dad vibes, and a clear, excitable authenticity around his obsession with cars. You wouldn’t recognize him on the street — no chiseled jawline or fashionable clothes. He looks nothing like George Clooney. Comments on his videos refer to him as the “most punchable face on the internet.”
He’s authentic, in the same way Gary Vaynerchuk was when he produced Wine Library TV in the late 2000s. Gary created content around wine that was approachable and interesting in an era where wine content was stuffy and uninteresting. Doug is employing a similar approach but for cars.
Being unique or “off” is a cheat code on the internet in 2023, and Doug is taking full advantage.
On the surface, Doug’s content may seem like any other car YouTuber — reviewing cars, talking about the market and auto industry at large… but what he’s been able to accomplish from YouTube exists far beyond the play button.
I wrote about the ACP funnel last month, and Doug’s living it. With such a big audience, his content has become a staple of the modern era car community. But instead of following the traditional YouTube creator model — Adsense + getting Ford to sponsor your videos with a 30 second ad read — he created the exact product his community needed:
A digital marketplace for his community to buy and sell cool modern cars, trucks, and SUVs called Cars & Bids. Social networks and marketplaces are go-to digital products to build for creators.
Who knows more about cool modern cars than Doug? His community has already spent hours consuming his content. They trust Doug and his opinions on fun cars — and now they have a place to buy them. This is especially important in car buying because it’s littered with untrustworthy used car salesmen.
If I wanted to buy a slick 1996 SAAB 900 Cabrio, I could
See Doug’s commentary on the website and go on YouTube for a deeper review
Make the purchase and sleep well at night knowing it’s from a trusted source
Doug took the path less traveled for creators by building a startup. It’s impressive because the auto-industry spends $5-6B/year on advertising. These car companies have deep pockets and could pay Doug lots of money to say nice things about their vehicles.
But he doesn’t care. He will talk crap about any automaker if their models don’t earn a high Doug Score. Conversely, a fan of Doug’s will love to see his take on different cars — especially those he hasn’t done a full review of — like this classic Toyota Land Cruiser.
Cars and Bids is probably working out for Doug much better than any brand deal would. Let’s say his site takes 4.5% of any purchase — if over $230M in cars have been sold on the platform, Cars and Bids has brought in at least $10+ million of revenue and the asset is worth a cool 9 figures.
The best part? The people who buy cars from Cars and Bids become even more Doug fanatics. This drives more word-of-mouth about Doug and his ecosystem. This is the magic of ACP.
Doug has parlayed his enthusiasm for modern cars into a digital community of car lovers and a multi-million dollar vehicle marketplace.
He is the ACP funnel in full magical effect.
Be well,
Greg Isenberg (I’m getting more active on Instagram and TikTok)
P.S: If you want to work with me, you should email me. My design agency designs the world’s greatest ACP products and we work with 1 new cool company a month.
Shoot me an email greg.isenberg@latecheckout.studio or reply to this Substack
If this post gave you an ounce of value:
Love this new series! Keep ‘em coming.