Three guests on one episode — Oliver and Alvaro, co-founders of Telos Media and the team behind Solar Balls (half a billion views on the English channel alone, 2 billion across all languages), and Mary James, the Hollywood-experienced executive producer who bridges their digital-first world and the mainstream. Together they've just launched Run Monster Run, a new animated IP that hit 20 million views within two weeks of its pilot dropping on YouTube — and they're already fielding inbound interest from platforms.

The conversation covers the full playbook: how Solar Balls went from zero to 100,000 subscribers in 10 days and turned profitable within a month; why YouTube was chosen as the launch platform for Run Monster Run over a traditional pitch route; how Discord functions as a fandom hub that sits outside the algorithm; and how Alvaro manages fan engagement with a deliberately mysterious, Easter-egg-heavy approach that keeps communities theorising and proactive without burning through the IP's future potential. The team is refreshingly candid about what they're looking for in a platform partner — and equally clear that they don't need one to proceed.

The episode also gets into what makes Run Monster Run different from the current wave of independent animation: a deliberately broad, multigenerational emotional premise, complex lore built for long-term storytelling, and the creative discipline not to show everything at once. A team of 122 people, a theme song co-written by the creators of the Paw Patrol theme, and a shorts strategy designed to deepen character rather than just fill a feed. This one is worth watching closely.

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Kids Media Club podcast.

I am Andy Williams.

I'm Emily Horgan and Joe, we have more than one guest.

Not one, not two.

We've got three today.

It's an embarrassment of riches.

We are super happy to have the team not only behind Solar Balls, but also Run Monster Run, which we're going to dig into today here.

So I'm going to let them introduce themselves.

I'm going to throw to you first, Oliver.

Okay.

Hello everyone.

I'm Oliver, founder of Telos Media, which is a company that is incubating Animation IP on YouTube and we're doing that across various different niches.

Some entertainment, some entertainment.

And we're now doing a big, a big pilot episode and also a season which is for Run Monsterum which we launched two weeks ago.

So I'm one of three co founders, Alvaro and Mary, also here and yeah, looking forward to talking.

We're very pleased to have you here.

Mary, do you want to say hello and then we'll go to Alvaro and then we can get going?

Sure, of course.

Mary James, executive producer, Always looking for the next big thing and I found these two amazing partners with this incredible IP and I think it's think we found the next big thing.

Alvaro.

Hello, my name is Alvaro Calmette.

I created Run Monster Run.

I'm the co creator of Solar Balls alongside Oliver and also one of the co founders of this new project.

And I'm really happy to be here guys.

Thank you so much for having us.

You are more than welcome and we're super excited and as I said.

So Solar Balls, I'll come to you first, Oliver, and maybe you can jump in.

Alvaro.

So Solar Balls, I mean I was literally just checking before we came on this call.

So over 2 million subs and half a billion views on YouTube.

Tell us a little bit about that and then we can go into Run Monster Run.

How does it sit alongside the Solar Balls universe?

If it does, what was the inspiration?

Why now?

We'll hand over to you.

You're far more interesting than me.

Lovely.

Well, actually Alvaro I think is great if he talks about this because it's is about the creative and the fandom.

So overall you tell us, tell us more for sure.

Like the, I guess in a way like Solar Balls has been such a like learning experience for us.

You know, like we, we, I think we dropped all our creativity, all our like everything we've learned through like over a decade working on the web on Solar Balls.

But also we learned so much through it.

You Know, like, how to build fandom, how to maintain a community, how to engage with them.

And that's all things that we brought along when we were, like, working on Run Monster Run, you know, for example, how to.

Like how people, for example, they really want to engage with a creator.

That's.

That's something that's so valuable especially.

Especially nowadays, you know, that sometimes you don't even know who's behind the screen, you know, so if people feel like they.

There's somebody behind the curtains, you know, and they really care about what's being put on the screen and they can trust that creator because the story pays off several times, then, yeah, those are things that we learned so much through sortables.

It wasn't even planned initially.

People started to notice when I put some community posts and such, my involvement, and then they say, hey, Alvaro said this, Alvaro said that.

Oh, Alvaro hinted something and that's so much fun.

They love that.

And it became a thing.

And of course, now with Ramonster Run, there's a bit of that audiences also.

There's a lot of audiences from Solar Bowls that go to watch this because the storytelling style has some similarities and we left some hints here and there about some sort of things that fans of the show will discover if they watch Run Monster Run.

So it creates a bit of a little transmediatic experience.

And as far as the business elements, so, yeah, half a billion views on the English Channel, and then we also have 15 or 14 languages that are also on different channels.

So we have a total of just over 2 billion views across the solar balls IP and then a few billion views of fandom content.

And we found that Solar Balls has been, you know, it's been incredible with building the fandom and the Discord.

We have almost 300,000 members on the Discord server, which is one of the biggest of any animation IP on the Internet as far as we know.

So, yeah, we managed to find a really interesting niche of this edutainment that is valuable because it helps people learn.

But also the characters that Alberto has built creates a true lore and a true universe that people can engage with as well.

So it's been really exciting to build and yeah, looking forward to building more and learning from Solar Balls and also run mods to run.

I'd love to hear a bit more.

About, like, the origin of Solar Balls, because obviously you guys have great success now.

But, you know, what was it, what was it that inspired you to start on it?

What was it that made you choose YouTube as the core platform?

Tell us a little bit about the IP for listeners who might not have heard about it.

So I think we can discuss a bit of that early because initially we were just going to jump right into Sorrowables, you know, with like, let's do, let's go shot about talking planets.

Seemed like we didn't think much about it, but then we kind of, like I think I discussed with you, let's, let's hold on for a second.

Let's actually prepare this, you know, because it could be very special.

And I remember a lot of people, even my dad, he told me, are you sure you can make a show about talking planets that lasts more than 20 episodes before you run out of things?

And my intuition was, I think so.

I think you can do something that's very interesting, but it has to go back to character.

And Soraboss has been so validating in terms of storytelling.

That's all character based.

For example, if you make the Earth be a very like, special character, you know, that everybody respects a lot, but at the same time, somebody that is a bit of show off because it's the only one that has life, so he's going to have his own story arc to learn certain things, or Venus being hot headed because he's the hottest planet, things like that, you know, then you're actually introducing entertainment through character.

And that means that you can focus more on the story than on trying to be, you know, like, like, like educational.

So in the end, it's funny because that reaction of people is, you guys trick me into learning.

Because for the most part you're seeing the characters engage and have fun.

Nobody's like, hey guys, today we're going to learn about this.

But rather like, hey, let's play tag.

And it's like, hey, you can't play tag with me.

I'm a planet.

If we crash, we disintegrate and new planets will be born out of us.

Oh, okay, okay.

Sorry, I didn't mean that.

So that's how storytelling comes and education comes through Solar Balls.

It's pretty fun.

And in terms of the launch, so the way we did it is previous to solarboards, Alvaro and I were already working on other IP ideas.

And yeah, we basically thought, okay, we'd already got this channel which was doing organs as characters and also countries as characters.

And we thought we can do planets as characters.

We actually saw some interesting fandoms on the Internet that were already having these personalized personality based characters as planets.

And we thought, okay, how about we turn this kind of comic Style into something we can make into animation and build into a real show.

So there was some inspiration that we saw from fandoms that existed already, which was interesting.

And we started off with one to three minute videos, very short but educational and packed with value.

And yeah, it was really exceptional.

The launch, we got 100,000 subscribers in 10 days.

From scratch, from zero.

And when was that?

We did this like financial map of, okay, we're going to invest whatever, $5,000 a month and just see if we can gradually build.

And in like two months we were like, we're profitable, it's fine, we're doing great.

And we just went from there.

I thought I was going to lose.

Money for like over a year and then our projects blew it out the water with the creative and we were fine.

It was, I think, I believe Oli.

I believe it was month one.

I think, I think maybe it was month one.

Yeah, month one and two.

Yeah.

And what do you think the secret was to getting that many subscribers so quickly?

Yeah, it was interesting.

There was one piece of it which was beneficial is we already had a few channels.

We already had around 2 million subscribers, I'd say, across a few different brands.

So we did a cross promotion where we basically merged two character universes together, where we had.

Alvaro can speak more about this.

Yeah, but basically we did some cross promotion, but then the algorithm heavily picked it up afterwards because of the uniqueness of the format and the fact that Alvare created something very special.

But Albert can briefly speak about that.

I think honestly, it's a little bit similar to what is happening right now with Ramonster Run, which is we do a cross promotion that starts a bit strong and then we leave the IP to take off because honestly, we trust in it.

And YouTube is really good at identifying what audience is the right audience for something.

And if you have a good product and you have a good project and a good story and good characters and such, and then you have the tools like, for example, building a discord or some social media or platforms where they can all go together, then, yeah, you create a small ecosystem and then it just grows.

It just grows.

And yeah, so it was like, honestly, like we thought we were going to cross promote solar balls of our previous IPs a bit more than we ended up doing, because then it really wasn't needed, it just took off.

Seems like there was like a need for something like a sortable.

Because I think the next week we had like 15 copycat channels.

Trying to do sortables, contents, that was the biggest proof of concept we could ever have.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, that's the most flattering thing.

If everyone tries to copy you.

How does.

Yeah, for sure.

And how does.

How do you kind of.

How does Discord fit in in terms of your strategy?

What's the way you use Discord and how does that kind of connect to YouTube in terms of how you really kind of build that community?

So I can say, and this, of course, applies to both Solar Boss and Ram Monster Run, that Discord is a great place to be a little bit more independent to some of the algorithms of the Internet, I guess, because you can engage with people one to one.

And also if you want them to know about something, you create, let's say, an announcement tab or a sneak peeks tab.

If you want hardcore fans to be like, hey, guys, we're posting sneak peeks on Discord now.

They go and they can see some behind the scenes, some future hints, and it just creates a hub where people go and talk.

You need to have moderators and stuff in Discord to keep things civil and whatever, but for the most part, it just becomes a place where people can go and you can let them know what's going on without the need of an algorithm doing, like, Changing Tomorrow, for example.

So it's very helpful.

And, Mary, tell us about your journey with this.

Where did you come in?

Well, you know, needless to say, these guys have a brilliant digital strategy.

And I met Alvaro probably five years ago, actually in the lobby of Kids Screen, and I think it was pre Solar Balls Alvaro.

And he just started talking creative with me.

And I was so impressed with what he was doing that we became friends and colleagues.

And when he brought Run Monster Run around with his partner Oliver, I was just so impressed by the IP and the potential for a very big franchise in more of a mainstream way, which is where I come to.

This partnership is really more of the Hollywood experience.

And I think I'm here to kind of bridge the gap between the digital world and the mainstream world and find a way to.

To take this to a place where it really deserves to be.

So that's really my role in the partnership.

And I have learned so much from these guys.

I've learned to speak a whole new language.

It's called digital.

And they've assembled this amazing team of digital experts to help us launch Run Monster Run.

So I wasn't part of this Holo Brawl experience.

I so appreciate the work that they've done there.

And we're leveraging that to get going with Run Monster Run.

But I think the potential to go to a much broader perspective with Run Monster Run is definitely where we're headed with this one.

In previous years perhaps, maybe, but now, and it's already come up the word ecosystem.

I think we're all bought into the fact that an IP needs to exist across an ecosystem with various nodes in order to scale so.

But interestingly, you've chosen to go out with Run Monster Run as a one off Pilot on YouTube as your entry point, rather than the more traditional side that Mary's pointed out, which would be a pitch for a full series and then just go out and pitch the usual streamers.

What made you choose that?

Was it the confidence that you had off the back of the success of Solar Balls?

For me it was the confidence in the ip.

It's brilliant.

It's a long term vision that Albro has.

There's a very complex and emotional lore attached to it.

It's extremely thought through.

I mean, the pilot's great, the rest of the episodes are better.

And not only that, I think like I said earlier, it appeals to a much broader audience.

So I feel like it is going to reach not just kids, but teenagers and adults as well.

Like YouTube for launching IPs.

Sometimes it doesn't feel at first like it's the first logical thing.

Sometimes it's like the intuition would say, hey, let's go for, for the more mainstream ways.

And of course that's one of the reasons why Mary's here.

She's really good at that.

But as a first step to use YouTube, as we said, we understand a lot of their algorithms, we understand the audience, we've had experience with that.

And especially now that we got really inspired by how a lot of independent animation is testing this model successfully, which is do your project, launch it for the world to see and then worry about the next steps of mainstream and all.

It works surprisingly well.

We're so happy with everything that's going on since we launched.

There's so much going on that it's just so promising and it almost feels like a no brainer nowadays to do it this way.

But it does take a bit longer than that though, because obviously it sounds like you guys have been tinkering around on YouTube for years.

Even before Solar Balls, you were having that direct to consumer outlet.

Because I just wouldn't want.

I Wouldn't want somebody listening, is going, oh, it's going to launch on YouTube from scratch.

Because it's, you know, when it's in success, everyone's like, look those on YouTube.

It works.

But it actually is, it's the sum of, you know, many years of you guys learning, failing probably, right?

And then and pivoting again.

I failed so much, oh my gosh, like on YouTube.

Like, I'm proud, I'm proud of how much I failed on YouTube.

Like I've done all the mistakes you can make and I'm so happy, so happy about that.

And that's why here's the thing, you know, like, for example, us with some of the traditional media stuff, like maybe Oli and I wouldn't be as solid as having somebody like Mary on board, you know, so.

And I'm so happy with the partnerships that I've put together because they're like, Ollie and Mary are some of the most decent, wonderful, friendly, open minded people I've met and they're so welcoming to my own creative vision.

Sometimes that can be challenging and I always try to welcome that with, try to put my best vision forward and everything.

But they bring so much talent and so much more to this project.

That's what I would mention to everybody that's like, oh yeah, Obviously, let's do YouTube.

No, I think partner up with somebody that maybe understands that the ecosystem better.

If you have a good idea and you want to enter it, don't assume that it's just post something and that's it.

There's a lot of thought put behind it.

But the main thing, and that is the main thing that I want take away to be, the main thing is having something that's good, that you believe in, that you have a vision.

And because the algorithms, despite changing all the time, do reward something that has a consistent vision and that's good.

I would add one point to that, which is that there's this kind of new era where the content is the marketing and it's not separate, right?

And in traditional media there's like a development budget and like what is development and what is the IP and then what is the marketing for that?

And I think that when Alvarez speaks, he's so absorbed in the digital landscape that like he's been able to merge those two things and so have I.

But it is easy to forget those two things are traditionally separate.

And I think that's one key thing about YouTube that's hard to maybe grasp from the mainstream, is that it does require a very interesting way of shaping the content so that it is the marketing at the same time.

And I think if I was to provide any advice that would help those in the mainstream, it is find that partner understands how to make the content and the IP itself the marketing.

There should be no need to do Google Ads budget to like promote your pilot.

We haven't done any of that.

There should be no need to pay celebrities to like review your IP and do articles in different, different magazines.

There should be no need for that.

There just simply is the need to know how to craft the content itself to be marketing inherently.

And it's very subtle.

It is a.

It's a.

It's a craft.

But what's beautiful is that many creators have lived on the platform and done that.

So, you know, I think that there is opportunity, really big opportunity for those who have creative visions and IP and understand the traditional animation world and what it is and what it can be, and they partner with those creatives or creators or hire creators or joint venture with creators who understand how to do that merging of content IP with the marketing.

And then you just have something that just sets the light.

And that's what we've managed to achieve multiple times with solar balls and with romance to run.

I have a.

Sorry.

On that note, I have kind of a funny story.

Content is marketing and how much I've learned from these guys.

So when.

When we were sort of developing this, you know, I don't know our gives, obviously the script and then we see the animatic and you know, we see the 3D animation come to life.

We're super excited, excited.

And it.

And I'm like, wait, where's the opening credits?

Like, I don't.

You can't just start this, the episode in the middle of the episode.

Like, where do you say?

Where's the theme song?

Where do you enter?

You know, because old school.

And Al was like, no, no, no.

It's all about the first seven seconds.

You can't open your credits.

Kids will swipe away.

And I was like, oh.

And sure enough, that's what we do.

Yeah, I mean, I think.

I think that touches upon something where particularly people coming from more of a traditional broadcast background, they often, I think, make the mistake of thinking that YouTube is just a different platform where it's actually a different mindset.

And the.

You've.

Yeah, you've got to have a very different relationship to it.

And I think the audience has that creator.

They have a social relationship with the creators, which means that the making of it becomes as you said all of it becomes part of the promotion and marketing of it because they want to feel like they're participating in the creation of it as well.

And it's a very different shift in terms of how people think about that.

I think that's great.

But those of us that came from more traditional media, we're having to unlearn and relearn.

But it's just instinctive to kids today.

They haven't seen an opening theme tune on every single episode more or less ever.

So whilst they still love music, to your point, Mary, and this is one of the things that I say a lot.

When people say that kids attention spans have shortened, it's not that.

It's their interest spans that have shortened because there is so much content out there vying for their attention.

That's why that seven seconds is super important.

And if that seven first seven seconds is the same theme tune every single time, of course they're going to swipe past.

But they've never known it any different.

We have.

So to us, it's.

It's a whole different ballgame.

Tell us a little bit about your team structure.

What does your team structure look like right now?

We'll give that to you, Oliver.

Sure.

Okay.

Well, yeah, on the business side, I'll speak to the business and Alvaro can speak to the creative.

So on the business side, we've intentionally set up the robots to run show just like Solar Balls, where we have an independent team that can functionally continue to produce the creative and also build the business behind it.

So the business behind it at present is the merchandise that is going to be a core element of what we build.

And then we're also going to be doing other things as well.

We're going to explore potentially something like Patreon, like we did with Solar Balls.

We're the biggest animation Patreon in the world at present, which is pretty significant.

And people are literally paying for one week early access to Alvaro's episodes.

That's all they're paying for.

They could just wait, but they're just paying one week early and they're paying $10 a month.

They're paying a Netflix subscription for that.

So again, that really proves loyalty, fandom and what can be built when you get it right.

And Alvaro's done that.

So, you know, that's been fantastic.

So that's the business.

And yeah, we have a marketing manager who's helping to figure out how do we promote the merchandise in the content, how do we set up the merchandise store so it converts well, we've got a team that's connected directly with the factory to actually build and make the plushies and the board game that Alvaro created, which he can speak to momentarily.

And yeah, we've got various elements.

And then operations wise, we have a chief of staff who's running the project with us.

We have a general manager of Telos Media who's helping to keep things smooth, head of finance who's helping to do financial projections, legal risks, set up trademarks.

So, yeah, all the pieces that at least for a scrappy team, you can get one person in each function.

So you're running just about well enough and you can start moving.

And that's been the business team CEO pool, many team members from Telos helping bring in the team that we've already got as well to help out.

And it's been working so far.

So, yeah, business wise, it's been great.

I can't stress enough how important it is in terms of you have an idea, you want to make a show, just to have a solid structure behind it.

Especially for me as a creative, I don't have to stress too much about, like, hey, like, is this person getting paid or are we going to be fine in community management or such, you know, like, I can count on Oli and everything he brings to the table, you know.

Yeah.

Like you mentioned, a lot of the team structure.

Like I can say at the top of the.

At the top of the structure, like I have on one side Oliver, who's like so good at everything, like Internet and digital, you know, to hold me accountable on those things, and Mary on the other side to hold me accountable on things that are more mainstream.

And I'm so happy that that's the case.

Both of them are excellent, have great input, and we just benefit from each other so much.

It's a very friendly dynamic.

And then on the more creative side, we have.

Can you talk about the creative side, the team?

Yeah, because we have Zeppelin, for example, who are the animation studio.

There's animation studio from Peru where I come from too.

We have Juan Diego Leon, who is the art director, who I met in the past and I've done several projects in the past.

And what I can say about those two pieces, Zeppelin and Juan Diego, we work very closely together and they're such big fans.

We're always having fun in the calls, just talking about what to change, make sappy look to the left instead of to the right because that means something else.

And it's always kind of like an exciting process, a fun one.

We have Jacob who's the music composer who I found on the Internet.

I literally just went to the Internet and tried to find a great music composer, but, like, you know, like somebody that's on the web, you know, doing music.

Such a big talent.

Oh, my God, I love his music on this.

We have also, like, two of your colleagues, Mary, also doing the theme song.

You can talk a bit on that.

So there is a theme song.

Mary got her teen song.

Yeah, we got it at the very end of the episode, though.

Mary was there at the beginning, and in the end she was like, did we report it?

Yeah, it's at the very end.

It's over the credits.

Our theme song is over the credits.

And our theme song was written by Scott Trepain and Michael Smith, AKA Smitty.

They wrote the Paw Patrol theme song you might be familiar with.

Anyway, they're wonderful, and they did a great job of making a spooky, eerie theme song that goes over the end credits.

And a big chunk just to finalize.

We have also two other animators, also from Peru, helping us with shorts strategy.

So usually just try to think of ideas to develop shorts, and they animate those, and then Zeppelin Studios helps us render.

And honestly, the short part of this whole process has been so, so much fun because we get to experiment, we get to iterate ideas very fast.

Also kind of learn more about even these characters just by doing little tests and things.

And also, the shorts has been so good at creating this nice dynamic with the pilot.

So, yeah, honestly, we could go for hours.

Like, there's, I think, over 100 people.

Yeah, 122 team members.

And I would wish I could name them all.

But if you don't mind, we can put the link in the description so people can see the rest of the team.

But, yes, we've got a big group of people.

Finalize the voice actors who a lot of them we've worked with in the past in projects like Solar Ball.

Some of them are newcomers.

And everybody's very excited and happy and passionate and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I love working in projects where everybody's, like, getting excited, and if they're not, I'm gonna try to excite them.

I'm gonna be like, oh, my God.

And this is that future episode, by the way.

I did a clip with your character.

Check it out.

You know, and, like, that's the most fun, you know, like, beyond, hey, this is your payment for this job you did.

You know, it's more like, guys, like, we're Doing creative stuff, you know, this is our life.

Let's enjoy it, you know, and that's.

That's beautiful.

That makes me be happy every day I get to work with our team.

And by the way, the team, in some ways, the team is quite small because Alvaro conceived the concept, wrote the scripts, directs the scripts, helps to compose the music.

He wears quite a few creative hats.

That singular vision is so very important, isn't it?

I think what a lot of people assume is that when IP launches and blows up on YouTube, it's just one or two people just having a bit of fun.

And actually, you need to professionalize pretty quickly.

Otherwise there is a ceiling and a limit on how quickly you can grow.

And I think a lot of people are perhaps not aware of the fact that there are studios and creators and producers, such as yourself, who are scaling up and professionalizing still with the intention of building a huge global IP that does sit across that entire ecosystem, but who are intentionally choosing to go to YouTube first.

I want to come back to you because this kind of throws up attention in the sense that one of the things that you've mentioned is you're closer to the fans on YouTube, really.

There's nowhere to hide.

And that takes a degree of courage.

But it also means that you are there in front of them.

They're giving you their feedback, whether it's solicited or not.

Sometimes it can be a little bit harsh.

You got to build a resilience.

I mean, you have a fandom, Alvaro, you have a fandom for your ip, you have a fandom for you.

How do you stay close to them and almost maintain that personal relationship when you are growing in your scaling?

I mean, some like.

So here's a little bit of a fun angle around that, and is that I try to be very mysterious around a lot of this, and people anticipate that, you know, so sometimes let's say somebody mentions a comment that hints something at the future, and I see that comment, I just reply with that emoji with eyes looking to the side, and that's all I do.

And then people will comment on that and reference that.

Maybe that means something.

And every now and then, I think I try to build something that's very sporadic around my engagement with the fans.

It's not so much about going and having long chats.

It's not the way I would do it.

My way is more about hinting and having fun and then maybe making the fan themselves proactive in that, like, almost like spreading what has happened, you know, like Alvaro came here and left a comment on this.

There's theory channels on Discord on both Solar Boss and Ramonster Run.

So sometimes just go there and if somebody posts a good one, I can say like, you got some points, right?

I won't say which ones.

And then everybody, oh, well, which ones?

You know, I feel like you're.

It sounds like you're Taylor Swifting.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, the Easter eggs and like, we got to look into, like, what they're thinking and the side quest.

I couldn't attest to that.

I don't know much about Taylor Swift, but yeah, Easter eggs are very much something that I love to do.

You know what I do a lot, Just a fun thing when I want to hint, let's say a little scene from the future of a show.

I take my camera, I step as far away as I can to the screen, I take a photo, then I crop it so it's pixelated.

Horrible.

Then I edit it horribly, and then I post it, you know, and it's just like an angle of something, somebody's hand, you know?

Yeah.

And then people are like, oh, my God, whose hand is that?

You know, that happened with Remonstrance.

I took like a photo of Sapie from one of the scenes and they.

People just turned it into, like one of the stickers of the official server.

I don't know.

I don't even know what that happened.

I came back and people were using it and I was like, yeah, but that's.

That's the thing, you know, like, it's almost like you make them want more than what they're getting, you know, which makes them talk about it, you know, it's not so much about here.

There's a lot of content, there's a lot of things for the future, but it's more.

And just to finalize this with solar balls, for example, we've been very patient.

And I'll use solar balls because it's a great example.

Space is huge.

Black holes, galaxies, other stars.

In the four years we've done solarables, only this year did we get out of the solar system.

And that's because I really wanted to create this vibe that, like, there's so much beyond.

And we hint at it, you know, and sometimes they talk about imagining and everybody's like, when are we gonna see more?

And then we start to see a bit more, you know, it takes its time.

It's sweet, sweet time, you know, but you make them feel that and you make them enjoy that and you make them theorize and then they make fun animations of what they imagine and then they're all proactive.

And that's something that, when, when I mentioned earlier, some copycat channels that came, I think they burn a lot of.

The.

Possibilities early on, Apple calls and everything.

And then you run out of topics.

In our case, we still have so much to cover for SolarPulse because we've been patient and we've made other things very interesting in space and we want to do that with Ran Monster and there's so much to come.

You have no idea.

That example also, I think, really is a fantastic example of how you kind of step off the stage and actually mix with your fan base rather than, you know, the, the old traditional thing was somebody's on the stage and the audience is there and you don't kind of have that mix and interaction with it.

And that's a brilliant, brilliant example of that.

Yeah, like fans, Fans are really happy to be more proactive now.

Like, give them a reason to be proactive.

And they will be proactive.

They will.

There's a comment section, like, going back to, for example, Mary's mentioned earlier, like, where's the intro?

Like, I think you once told me, Mary, like, how will they know what they're watching?

Because that.

That's where you come from.

And I think the answer was they clicked on it.

They know.

Yeah, they saw the thumbnail and the title.

And is the audience that you've got for Run Master Run the audience you thought you were going to have?

Are they.

Is it the audience you imagined that you've.

You've got?

You know, it's, it's funny.

Like, I think Ram Monster Run has like.

It's like a marriage of the digital first type of audience that we get nowadays with a more mainstream type of project.

By that I mean, like, we were aiming for a very broad audience.

We really wanted something that everybody can watch and enjoy and sit down.

Like, I, like, I'm a big fan of.

Like, I have a lot of, like, some shows that I watched when I was growing up.

I still love to this day because of the way, you know, like, there was something that you enjoy as a kid and maybe there's other layers that you enjoy when you grow up.

And that's something that I really try to bring when I write stories.

Something that just has more nuance and more layers and more layers to peel the more you maybe grow up.

In the end, Ramon's story is a story about Kids having to deal with a very adult, very dangerous world.

And I think all of us, even as adults, can relate to that at certain degree.

We are all kids deep inside that at one point had to get out of our house and figure out things and we don't understand everything.

So at the heart, that story appeals to a broader audience.

And I think that's what we aim for.

A digital space allows that, allows that beautifully.

We don't need to do a thing that's only for adults.

We wanted to.

And that's why I think a lot of people, at first we saw a lot of comments, people trying to figure out, okay, but this is not as dark as some of the other independent animation we've seen.

Like, where's the cursing?

Where's the gore?

You know, it's like we don't want to make younger audiences, we want to be responsible with them, you know, but you're going to get themes that are going to be still a bit heavier, you know.

So to answer your question.

Oh, I'm sorry, Albro, I just was going to answer the question and say yes, I actually think the audience that we're getting is the audience we expected.

What would you agree?

For sure.

Yeah, for sure.

And a lot of audience are starting to discover that, hey, I didn't thought it was for me, but actually it is.

So some other older audiences, some younger audiences.

Yeah, we got what we want.

That, that, that you do get that freedom much more when you go digital first in the sense that you.

TV tends to commission and stream in very defined kind of age brackets, whereas they're, they're, they have elastic sides on places like YouTube, which I think is really beneficial.

But are you in conversations with platforms or, you know, streamers about Run Monster Run?

Mary, what are you doing with Run Monster Run in your world?

What kind of partnerships are you looking for?

Right now we're in the very fortunate position of people kind of coming to us to inquire.

It's pretty early stages.

We've just launched two weeks ago.

I think we're up over including the shorts.

We must be well over 20 million by now.

And I think that the kind of partner we're looking for, if anyone, I think we're prepared to make the whole series ourselves.

But I think a strategic partner that is very well aligned with the creative vision of Alvaro.

I think that's the kind of partner we would want somebody who recognizes and appreciates the digital efforts helmed by Oliver and the creative vision of Alvaro.

I think that's really important.

You Know, we came this far because they're really talented guys, and so we would want somebody who's as passionate as we are about the vision.

Yeah.

And one thing that we back to the kind of the content is the marketing.

The IP is the marketing.

Again, we see great potential for a partnership wherein that the fact that we are on YouTube and we are able to reach tens of millions of people, it can become a funnel into a subscription and a platform that wants to have, let's say, early access, similar to solar balls.

We are the biggest patron in the world for animation.

We can also do a deal with a platform or some kind of partner where they get that similar benefit, but it's onto their platform.

So I think this new world where commissioners don't need to bet just on the creative, they can also bet on the business opportunity of the subscription revenue and the new platform users.

I think that's going to be super interesting if the kind of acquisition team and licensing teams are able to find a way of modeling that and kind of respect it, because it's a big opportunity.

If they can find that instead of those two things being separate.

And then you have the team who wants to get new users and you have the team who does the creative, and they're just like too separate.

And you're missing out on this new world.

Yeah.

I think the word there for me, Oliver, is respect.

To respect it.

Right.

It's like you guys are building independently one way or another, and you're not going to give that up.

You know what I mean?

It's not this.

That platform opportunity is not that golden ticket anymore because you've got your own golden ticket.

And it's just.

It's an opportunity to amplify what you're doing yet, like you said, Mary, to scope it out into something, you know, that could be wildly humongous, but it needs to be done with respect to what you already have on your own steam.

Yeah, there's definitely like one plus one equals three.

Some kind of scenario where we can find that.

Win.

Win.

We both create more from what we each have.

And, yeah, we really think there's something there.

So we're talking to some big players and we're looking forward to that in the coming weeks and months as we explore what that's going to look like.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Thank you so much, Oliver, Alvaro and Mary, this has been absolutely fascinating.

We, of course, want you to come back at some point in the future.

If you'll join us when I have no doubt that Ron.

Monster.

Ron.

We're going to be hearing a lot more of.

Deal.

We want the exclusive.

Yeah, exactly.

We come back here first.

Yeah, you better.

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna let Andy do our sign off.

Okay.

Thanks, Joe.

And thanks, everyone.

That was really fascinating chat.

Hope you guys enjoyed listening.

And please like and subscribe and find us wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you all next week.