Last week I caught up with one of our customers,
a hedge fund manager.

Him and I have built up a good rapport over the years.
The business relationship is basically: we tell them which brands people are talking about on YouTube, and they use that data to help inform their stock trades.

We got to chatting about what a funny world it is that we live in, this world of creators and data vendors and hedge funds. And about how seemingly every kid these days wants to be a YouTuber or an professional athlete when they grow up.

He made the joke that he would never let his kids become a “YouTuber” because its “impossible to make it big, there are so many other people trying to do to the same, the odds are so low of turning it into a living!”

I joked: “Isnt being a successful stock trader kind of the same??”

He agreed, then after a second he quipped back: “I suppose your right, at least if they decided they wanted to become a pro athlete, I might be able to persuade them into being a kicker. That’s where all the real risk-adjusted money is to be made.”

I loved that. Such a hedge fund guy thing to say. But it’s true.
And I think it applies to so many ‘survival of the fittest’ occupations.

Stock traders, pro YouTubers, pro athletes. All of these occupations get judged by their outliers (the long tail of the distribution): Ken Griff, MrBeast, Justin Jefferson.

Nobody thinks of the median outcome when they decide what they want to be growing up. Most traders, creators, athletes wash out (or burn out) before they ever even make it to the table.

Risk-adjusted, the best job in football isn’t QB, RB, or LT. It’s probably the kicker. Paid millions, long career, never gets hit, fewer competition for the position, admittedly less sexy.

The start running back is typically done after 5 years. But hey, kickers win/save games too (ex: my Gophers vs Indiana last week with 2 back-to-back 60yd FGs at the end of the game)

And the thing is: every long-tail field has a kicker job: lower ceiling, better odds, much better pay than it looks:

I suppose in some ways I have built a “kicker” business in two of these fields.
At Babbl, we sell data to hedge funds, and influencer marketing services to brands who want to work with creators.

We don’t need any single trade or any single video to “hit” for us to win.
We win when the whole field keeps playing.

In the world of creators, the influencer marketing manager or talent manager is the kicker. And again, they dont make quarterback money, but they make a solid living

(often a manager will get 20% of whatever the total budget is; multiply across however many creators they manage)

So if you thought you needed to be a starting quarterback to win big, think again.

If you are in a long-tail, survival-of-the-fittest industry, whats your kicker?

Best,
Ramsey