Whitney & Wyatt: Ce-webrities Turning Passion into Profit

Watch out Oprah, Ellen, and Rachel!  Web talk show hosts, Whitney Keyes and Wyatt Bardouille, bring a bite-sized talk show to the interwebs and beyond.  Both formerly of Microsoft, these two women decided to jump off the corporate ladder and follow their passions.  The result?  A hugely popular web talk show, Whitney and Wyatt, with a complete production crew to boot!

Whitney, of Whitney and Wyatt, took the time to answer some of my questions.  I learned a lot from her and I’m confident you will too.

Jessica Smith: How did you decide to launch a web TV talk show?

Whitney Keyes: Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved the media. I grew up reading newspapers and magazines from cover to cover, watching TV talk shows like Donahue and The Today Show, and couldn’t get enough of news stories and interviews on National Public Radio. A few years ago I realized I was so busy with work and life that my paper subscriptions weren’t getting read and my Tivo’d TV shows were stacking up. I didn’t have enough time to spend with the media that meant so much to me. So I cooked up an idea with my business partner, Wyatt Bardouille, to create a mini TV show on the web. It would be sort of like the best of all media squished into sort of a variety TV show, packed with all the most important or fun stuff in one show. The shows would be bite-sized and under five minutes long so you could quickly take a peek any time you wanted while you were at work or at home. We did a focus group of potential viewers and found that everyone agreed that the traditional “old” media was hard to keep up with so we did it. We combined our experience, Wyatt’s product management and film production knowledge and my marketing and business expertise, and we launched a new online TV talk show on our own site back in June of 2007.

JS: What was your biggest fear when you were starting out?

WK: I’m a very positive person but when I’ve had too little sleep or stress starts to creep in, my optimism can start losing its steam. When we first launched the site and show, I was concerned that our shows wouldn’t be funny enough or engage people quickly enough. I worried that people might not like us as hosts and would click away and never come back. Just the opposite happened. We’ve been very fortunate to now have fans around the world and have built a large viewer base. We’ve been syndicated, negotiated lucrative deals with national partnerships, received positive international media coverage, and have been approached by potential sponsors and advertisers.

JS: Tell me about the biggest challenge you’ve faced and how you overcame that challenge.

WK: The number one challenge we’ve had since day one was having no budget. We started this business doing everything ourselves: we were the directors, editors, producers, wardrobe consultants, production assistants, grips, tech department, web developers, graphic designers, composers, managers, marketers, and on camera talent. We eventually found great people to partner with, multi-talented technical crew members who were willing to work as interns for free, work for food or work for very little budget to help us turn this dream into a reality. We never could’ve come so far without all the people that helped us.

JS: Was there ever a day you wanted to quit?

WK: I’ve had plenty of very, very, very long, stressed-out days. There have been a lot of times when I’m exhausted from pushing myself to do too many interviews in a day or really frustrating times when the gear (camera, lights, microphone – take your pick!) wasn’t working and there’s nothing you can do. But I love being a TV talk show host and have never want to quit. I’d love to keep finding a way to do this and to eventually have my own show someday, even on “real” TV.

JS: What keeps you motivated?

WK: Knowing people really enjoy watching the show energizes me. When people come up to me on the street and say, “Your last show was great! It was so much fun to watch. I can’t wait to see the next one!” that feels so good. The other thing that keeps me going is knowing there are so many good stories out there just waiting to be told. Getting to meet new people and interview them, always being able to come up with a new idea for another show; that keeps me going, too.

JS: What would be your #1 piece of advice or lesson learned from your experience so far?

WK: Staying on course with a dream is hard. It’s like trying to follow a balloon while you’re on the ground. Don’t give up. It’s OK to stray off the path a bit but do whatever you can to stay motivated, focused and keep that initial idea within reach. Get the support you need, whether it’s someone to help carry the camera gear or a friend to talk to when you’re stressed out. So many people helped me along the way, everyone from TV producers and personalities like Nancy Guppy to friends and family. Creating an online video show is harder than it looks. Wyatt and I are actually producing a how-to DVD to help other people create their own online video show because so many people have asked us for help.

JS: What’s the weirdest piece of fan mail you’ve ever received?

WK: So many to choose from! Just kidding! Actually, 99.9 percent of the fan mail I get is supportive, positive and very normal. I get a lot of people, especially other women, asking me how we did it, how we created and produced our own web TV talk show and site, and if we can help them be sort of “cewebrities”, too. If I had to pick the most unusual comment, it would be one about a mini segment we did about the Lusty Lady, a famous strip club in Seattle, WA. A male patron told us he’d be willing to chat confidentially as a former Lusty Lady junky who still falls off the wagon every once in a while. We haven’t followed up with him yet, but that would be an intriguing show!

Thanks again Whitney!   To see more of Whitney and Wyatt click here.