Ryan Kaji was only three years old when his YouTube channel, Ryan’s World, started. Originally launched by his parents in 2015 as a way to keep friends and family in Japan updated for Ryan as he grows up in the States, the channel now has over 37 million subscribers and 58 billion views.
As Ryan has grown from toddler to teenager, his videos have evolved from toy reviews to science experiments and even animation. Her empire now includes a Nickelodeon TV show, a licensed toy brand, and a number of other YouTube channels, including a Spanish-language, gaming-focused channel, and one featuring the animated adventures of her sisters, Emma and Kate. spring movie, Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventuretheater plays this summer. (It struggled at the box office, making just $624,000 on an estimated $10 million budget.) It’s now available to watch on several streamers, including YouTube.
For the latest episode of The Newest Companies podcast, we spoke with Ryan’s father, Shion Kaji, and Albie Hecht, Ryan’s manager and chief content officer at digital media channel PocketWatch, about raising a child in the spotlight and building a brand that can grow with him.
Shion, you and your wife, Loann, started your first YouTube channel as a way to connect with your extended family. Did you ever expect or plan for such a global event?
Shion Kaji: We had no idea how big this was. Our goal was to share Ryan’s daily life with our extended families, too [it] soon a big thing happened. Four months after we launched our channel, views exploded. We started getting a lot of comments from viewers around the world. We quickly reached the top 10, top 20 among all different channels, within the first year. That’s when we started our own production company to help streamline production and reduce Ryan’s participation requirements. When we started, Ryan was only three years old, and all of our content was focused on him. I felt that the creators had the power of influence that could go beyond the YouTube platform, although at the time there was no other channel that became big and came out of YouTube.
When did you start monetizing your content?
SK: We got an email from YouTube telling us that we are doing important things. Then we started getting emails from brands—big toy and game companies, like Nintendo—saying they’d like to collaborate. But I wondered if we could create our own brand if we had that much influence. That recognition helped us break free. We reached out to the PocketWatch team. We worked together to launch a consumer product line and TV series. Now we are making a movie.
How did he allow Ryan to have a childhood while growing this business, and managing his brand as “the most famous kid in the world.” I know he couldn’t come to this podcast because he’s on digital detox at the moment.
SK: There is a lot of planning. Ryan’s private life as a normal child is important to us. Recording on YouTube takes 30 minutes to an hour each week. When we move forward with [Nickelodeon] TV series Ryan’s Mystery Playdate four seasons, we will film during the summer because we don’t really interfere with Ryan’s studies. There was also a teacher sitting every time he came. To fit the entire production over the summer, we’ll shoot multiple camera angles at once so there aren’t too many repeated scenes and we get the best of Ryan. The group became his friends. He played a lot of pranks on them.
He started making videos when Ryan was three, before he made his own decisions about being online. How do you know if you still want to do this?
SK: We always talk openly with all our kids, whether they are still interested in making videos, what kind of videos they want to make. When Ryan started at age three, he reviewed toys, but now he doesn’t review toys much. Now he does science experiments and videos about games. We are trying to adapt the product to his interests and expand our communication with our fans as Ryan grows. I think about our job as parents whose children love to take sports seriously. They start early: Most pro athletes start when they are three or four years old. They didn’t really have a decision, but parents always commit themselves believing that it is the right decision for them, which can change depending on how the children react.
But the difference between sending your child to a sports camp and becoming a star on a YouTube channel is that a large part of your income probably depends on their performance, right?
SK: We have separated our business. We have some animated characters within the product that are independent of Ryan.
There has been a lot of discussion lately about how child prodigies and children involved in the creative economy are compensated. How do you handle that?
SK: We are learning a lot to find the best way to create money, for our children. The first thing we did was set up a trust account for all three of our children and compensate ourselves. That way, the fund is secure and safe and if time permits, Ryan can spend his money himself. For movies and TV series, we set up a Coogan account [a protected trust fund]. We are required by law to have 15% of our income [from projects] it’s included there, but that’s the bare minimum and we’re always striving for more. One hundred percent of his talent money goes into Coogan’s account.
What happens when Ryan becomes an adult? Would you still work with him?
Albie Hecht: There is no interruption. But one of the reasons we made the movie was that it was animated. Ryan has animated personas, Red Titan and Super Spy Ryan. Through animation, he has the opportunity to continue to provide his preschool and youth audiences.
Do people recognize Ryan on the street?
AH: Go to Chuck. E. Cheese is also similar. . . Oh my God!
SK: What makes us happy is that most of the parents support us and those fans have their own parents. When Ryan is tired or when we are in a hurry, they understand.
What advice would you give to parents who want to continue this?
AH: You need to have parents who understand the business side of things. They need to add to the child’s talent and be more interested in it. It’s not just putting a video up and suddenly it goes viral. It could go on, but what you do with that and how you build a business and a brand and create an environment where a child can thrive is something parents should admire.
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